A SCHOOL playing field where travellers had set up camp in Dorchester has been left littered with rubbish.

The travellers arrived at the playing fields of the Thomas Hardye School last week having previously been at a play area near Holmead Walk in Poundbury.

They left the site on Thursday evening after being issued with a notice to quit by landowners the Duchy of Cornwall.

One local resident, who asked not to be named, said that the area was now a ‘filthy mess’.

He said the fields were left littered with beer bottles, discarded children’s toys and other litter while there is also a pile of tarmac and rubble left on the edge of a site next to a broken set of goalposts.

The resident said: “They have dumped rubble and several loads of tarmac in the corner of the lower playing field – it’s a considerable amount.”

He added: “It’s a filthy mess.”

The travellers claimed when they were at the Poundbury site that they had ended up there as they had nowhere else to go as they had come down to the area for the Great Dorset Steam Fair but the official site was not open until August 21.

When they moved on to the Thomas Hardye playing fields on of the group said they were doing no harm.

Bob Kerr, from the Stop the Drop Dorchester anti-litter campaign, said he was disappointed to hear of the litter that had been left behind.

He said there was legislation in place to prosecute those who litter and it was up to the authorities to enforce it.

Mr Kerr said: “We need the local authorities to prosecute people.

“It happens in other places and the fact is if one person gets prosecuted it gets in the papers and people suddenly become aware of it.”

After the travellers left the site where they had been staying in Poundbury and moved on the school there were also gas canisters and other litter left where they had camped.