GYPSIES and travellers at this year's Great Dorset Steam Fair are to be offered a temporary site in an effort to avoid problems experienced in the last few years.

The fair which takes place during the first week of September this year attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors.

Travellers and gypsies have always attended but for the last few years many have been excluded from the fair's camp site and have camped without permission around Blandford.

Damage was caused at Stour Meadows in 2002 and last year there was havoc on the Milldown where walkers reported feeling terrorised.

Some travellers used facilities at the leisure centre and staff reported feeling under threat.

Other complaints related to slaughtering of deer, emptying of chemical toilets into the Stour, the use of quadbikes and the firing of BB guns.

Now a landowner has offered a temporary site for travellers a few miles from the Tarrant Hinton site - the location is not being identified.

The move is the result of collaboration between the county council, North Dorset District Council, the police and the landowner.

New legislation means that police have added powers to remove unauthorised encampments very quickly when there is a designated alternative.

Travellers will be directed to the new site but if any are obstructive, police have the power to eject them from the county.

Chief Insp Nick Maton said: "By offering the use of a safe, alternative site, we hope that residents and travellers alike will benefit."

NDDC general manager Joyce Guest said: "We recognise the importance of the steam fair to the district but we also need to be constantly aware of the effect it has on our residents."

Mrs Guest added that the council was advising residents to avoid employing 'cold callers' to carry our work at their homes.

"We know this can be a particular problem during the Steam Fair so we would advise residents to be particularly cautious," she added.

David Ayre, head of gypsy and traveller services at County Hall, said: "We support the police and their increased Anti-Social Behaviour Act Powers.

"With an event of this scale it's important that the councils and the police co-ordinate their efforts."

First published: August 23