YORK should set up an official site to allow travellers to come and go as they wish, a leading city travellers' spokeswoman said today.

Christine Shepherd, of the York Travellers' Trust, said a "transient" site in the city would help to solve some of the simmering tensions when gipsies and other groups set up home illegally.

Mrs Shepherd was reacting after an all-party Commons group of MPs said local councils should provide caravan sites to travellers to prevent illegal encampments and clashes with locals.

The committee decided that most illegal traveller encampments were caused by a lack of places to stop. This meant authorities were paying for lengthy and expensive evictions.

Mrs Shepherd said York had three permanent sites at James Street, Osbaldwick and Clifton Moor but said that none was "transient" - recognising that travellers come and go to the city at different times of the year.

She said that York had a duty to provide more pitches for travellers and their families who, she said, are the city's largest ethnic minority.

"A transient site would eradicate all the problems," Mrs Shepherd said. "We have three official traveller sites, but travellers come into the area at certain times of year.

"If they had a transient site where people had somewhere to go, there would not be all the complaints. We would like to see that happen, but the local authority is against it."

Council leader Steve Galloway, commenting on the report, said he believed the authority had fulfilled its obligations. He said: "I think we would need to be convinced that additional pitches should be provided in York."

Ryedale MP John Greenway said he was in favour of providing new sites because he received regular complaints from constituents about illegally camped travellers.

"People are getting very frustrated," he said.

York MP Hugh Bayley said: "The key is to make sure local authorities make reasonable provision so there are enough places altogether. This means when people want to up and move on, there will be space somewhere else."

Updated: 10:33 Tuesday, November 09, 2004