THE group of travellers occupying the Old Laleham Healthcare site in Newman Lane moved out on Thursday last week and are believed to have left the Alton area.

The travellers, who arrived at the site on Sunday, March 17, moved out before the legal processes initiated by Laleham Healthcare to evict them, had been completed.

The travellers had previously occupied the car park at REHAB, and while the surrounding areas suffered little damage, large amounts of animal and human faeces were left over the car park and behind the tennis club building.

The Laleham site did not escape damage however, with chairs broken and thrown into the river, along with a hand-operated palette truck. Glass was broken in doors and windows, and door frames were smashed.

A large amount of animal and human excrement was also left at the site.

It is not known where the travellers have now moved to, but The Herald has received no reports of sightings in the Alton area.

Laleham managing director Vic Hilliard said: ÒIt got to the stage where we were getting phoned up by the surrounding businesses to ask what we were doing about the travellers. The fact was that there are very few effective ways of removing these people, so the only option was a lengthy legal process.

ÒThe land no longer belongs to us, but we carried out the legal proceedings and the clean-up operation on behalf of the owner, who is based in London. We didnÕt have to, but we decided to help out.

ÒAs well as boarding up all the windows and doors, and cleaning up all the faeces, we have had to replace all the welded steel fencing panels that were broken.

ÒThese were installed as a deterrent, but it has been proved that if someone is really determined, they can get through them.

ÒWe have now put in mounds of earth on the inside of the fence as well to act as a further deterrent. This will not make the site impregnable, but the prospect of having to dig through the earth may hopefully put some people off.

ÒThe damage that was done was just mindless thuggery. Throwing chairs in the river and breaking windows does not serve any purpose. Also, the amount of faeces left at the site was absolutely disgusting.

ÒThe cost of the clean-up is not as high as we had feared, but mainly because it has been Laleham employees that have carried out the work.

ÒSince the land no longer belongs to us, we should hopefully be able to recoup our losses from the current owner.Ó