FARMER Peter Clark has been subjected to verbal abuse in the street after making the controversial decision to open up his land at Stourpaine to travellers.

Council chiefs gave the go-ahead for Poppins Farm to be the designated site for travellers on unauthorised encampments to be moved during the Great Dorset Steam Fair and public consultation was kept to a minimum in a bid to keep other travellers in the dark - much to the disgust of some local residents.

And though Mr Clark, 52, says his decision has made him unpopular locally, he hopes the travellers' good behaviour on site will help sway public opinion.

He said: "We had a lot of opposition. Some people came in person and expressed their views and some have given me a lot of verbal abuse.

"I think I may well have lost friends over this but I'm not too concerned. I hope some people will look around in a short while and see that the scheme has run well and the travellers weren't as much trouble as we thought they were going to be.

"We hope this will change people's opinion of travellers.

"There was a bit of rubbish blowing about but we've cleared that up ourselves. We gave the council a complete service. We provided a site and security and rubbish disposal and saved the council taxpayers an extra bill."

At one stage there were 58 caravans and around 150 travellers on the site, which had toilet facilities, a water supply and skips for rubbish and Mr Clark, his family and farm staff provided 24-hour supervision.

In return for his troubles Mr Clark will receive £20,000 from North Dorset District Council and the county council.

He's unsure how many thousands of pounds his outgoings amount to at this stage, but he says he's invested a massive amount of time and hard work managing the site.

There had been fears that the travellers would stay long after the steam fair had ended but by 6pm on Sunday they'd all left.

Talks will now be held between police, the council, local residents and Mr Clark to discuss the success of the scheme, which saw police using new powers for the first time in the country to order travellers to leave unauthorised sites in favour of a designated area.

Mr Clark has not yet reached a decision as to whether to re-offer his land again next year.

First published: September 8