COUNCIL bosses have defended their comments after urging residents to avoid using travellers for household jobs in an effort to keep them away from the town.

The plea came from Barrow Borough Council's Street Care team, who hoped a group who set up camp on Ormsgill Playing Fields would move on to get work elsewhere.

Some members of the traveller community have been angered by the council's comments.

The group at Ormsgill Playing Fields left voluntarily last week after discussions with the council.

Alan Barker, Street Care manager, admitted other groups had left sites in worse conditions, but said human excrement and garden waste had been left behind.

A spokesman for Barrow Borough Council said: "The site has been cleaned up at no small expense.

"For the avoidance of doubt, the comments made by a council officer were always intended to be limited to the specific group of people who had unlawfully taken up occupation on the Schneider Road playing fields and who demonstrably left the playing fields in such a terrible state after they moved on.

"These comments were not intended to make any criticism of the wider traveller community or to insinuate that all members of the traveller community behave in the way in which the small number of individuals at Schneider Road playing fields behaved.

"The council’s issue was with the poor behaviour of a very specific group of individuals and not of a section of society more widely.

"The same concerns would have been expressed had anyone else done what this group did, irrespective of racial, ethnic or any other considerations.

"The Council is proud of its record on combating discrimination and opposes all forms of discrimination and hate crime both inside and outside the Borough."

The council had been exploring legal measures if necessary before the group, along with their six caravans and motorhomes left the site.

Organisers of a children's holiday club said they were forced to stop using the fields because of the human excrement and people riding on the field on quad bikes.