AN “unauthorised encampment” of Travellers has set up home on Tregurra Park and Ride in Truro. The site has been a popular venue for Traveller camps in recent years.

A number of caravans and other vehicles arrived just a few days after Travellers set up camp in the grounds of Lys Kernow/County Hall in Truro. Their caravans were parked on land behind Cornwall Council’s headquarters, near a community orchard, on Friday afternoon. They were gone by the end of last weekend.

A Cornwall Council spokesperson said of the latest camp: “We are aware that an unauthorised encampment has set up on the site of the overflow parking area at Tregurra Park and Ride. As this encampment is within the overflow parking area and not currently affecting the main park and ride site, the service and car park at Tregurra remains open.

“Officers will be visiting the site and we are continuing to monitor the situation. We understand the landowners are taking the necessary steps to remove the encampment.”

Travellers previously set up a temporary home at the busy park and ride, which is next to Truro’s Waitrose store, in July last year, in 2021 when the car park was forced to close for a time, and before that in 2019.

Travellers also moved on to a public park in St Austell just two days before it was due to hold an annual family fun day for residents. Organised by Stepping Stones pre-school and nursery, Party In The Park is due to take place in Poltair Park on Carlyon Road tomorrow (Saturday, May 17).

An encampment of ten caravans parked in a circle in the park, which is owned by St Austell Town Council. A spokesperson for the town council said the Travellers had been approached and had offered to leave the site by this afternoon (Friday, May 16).