A GROUP of gipsies who controversially set up camp at Tredegar House returned to one of their old sites yesterday amid accusations that they are giving Newport council the runaround.

As reported in later editions of yesterday's Argus, the travellers moved from Tredegar House overnight between Tuesday and Wednesday after staying at the site for just a few days.

But people living in Church Crescent, Coedker-new, awoke to find the gipsies had moved on to land behind their homes, a site they had previously left in what one resident desc-ribed as a "disgusting mess".

Marshfield councillor Bill Pursey said: "This is a major issue for people living here.

"It is all well to consider travellers' rights, but residents have rights too. "The sanitation aspect in itself is nauseating. It is a disgrace, and in the summer can easily spread disease.

"To see them move from one site to another seems like they are just giving the council the runaround.

"There needs to be some form of parliamentary legislation to stop this type of thing happening.

"Otherwise for everybody concerned it is a problem that is not going to go away."

A council spokeswoman confirmed that there was no major damage at the Tredegar House camp but that workers were cleaning up rubbish and waste left around the camp.

Chairman of the Eist-eddfod committee John Hughes said: "This has come as a welcome relief to all the staff working on the Eisteddfod as we are now just two weeks away and travellers on site would not have given the correct impression to visitors.

"There is a worry that they might come back. You never know with these people, they are a law unto themselves and I don't know what we could do if that happened. But we are very pleased."

A resident of Church Crescent, who did not want to be named, said: "They came back here during the night. The last time they were here they left a disgusting mess. Something needs to be done because since LG closed this area has become nothing more than a caravan park for gipsies."