A SOFTLY, softly "tact" force at the Dorset Steam Fair and a simultaneous rapid-reaction approach to oust illegal itinerants from Christchurch this summer reflects the twin-track strategy employed by Dorset police.

The differing operations at Stourpaine, where travellers were directed to a designated site, and at Somerford, when caravans were seized and their occupants arrested, were masterminded by Chief Inspector Nick Maton.

Under his guidance Dorset was the first force in the country to use new legal powers to move caravan convoys from unauthorised sites when they invoked section 62a of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act to shift steam fair travellers from Blandford to an alternative site paid for by North Dorset council.

The move was widely viewed as a success - even by the travellers themselves.

But days later Chief Insp Maton took a tougher line to direct a swoop on a persistent band of travellers playing cat and mouse with the authorities in Christchurch after being evicted from the town's 2Riversmeet sports arena where they had been camped for more than six weeks.

Specially trained officers backed up local police to impound one caravan recognised as being stolen, began removing vans when occupants refused to leave, and arrested a woman for obstruction when she locked herself in a caravan to prevent it being towed away.

When the travellers realised the police meant business, they moved on.

"It is important not to view all travellers as the same," said Chief Insp Maton, who believes local councils and residents can also play their part in avoiding the controversy and confrontations caused by traveller invasions.

He applauded the "bold step" taken by North Dorset council in collaboration with a local landowner to provide a temporary site where travellers could be directed immediately rather than go through lengthy and costly court procedures.

He urged local residents not to provide custom for travellers offering cut-price surfacing, building and landscaping work - often shoddily done and more expensive than first quoted.

"It is wrong to think the travellers are only here on holiday; they are here to work and if they were not making money, they would not have been so determined to stay," Chief Insp Maton told Christchurch councillors this week.

"People should not accept cold callers without getting a written contract. Once they realise their opportunity of earning is gone, they will leave."

Chief Insp Maton was also keen to dispel the idea that police were not willing or able to prosecute criminal activities blamed on the travellers, including criminal damage, theft and motoring offences.

While dozens of bicycles were recovered wrecked and abandoned at Christchurch when the travellers left, very few had been reported stolen.

But he warned that obtaining evidence was sometimes difficult and some of the more troublesome travellers, including their children, were well drilled in the law and when challenged could offer ready defences which were not easy to disprove.

Chief Insp Maton backs the National Association of Chief Police Officers' lobbying of the government for increased powers to deal with traveller problems, including creating a database to improve inter-county intelligence and communication and avoid the "traveller tennis" scenario of convoys being batted back and forth from one area to another.

"Travellers are not a problem that is unique to Christchurch or Dorset but there are laws and we will apply them," he said.