Sheffield RSPCA centre left counting the cost as travellers move on

Travellers who set up camp in the car park of the RSPCA’s Sheffield Animal Centre have now moved on.

A convoy of carvans set up on the site just off Woodbourn Road on Sunday afternoon.

Diana Radford, operations director at the centre just off Woodbourn Road, said they had damaged the land by driving a van into a concrete block and forcing it across the car park, ripping up the tarmac.

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The travellers had moved when The Star visited the site on Wednesday morning.

She said: “Just to give a scale of the task ahead of us, we have got to raise around £100,000 to keep this centre open this year – that’s how difficult it is.”

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The centre uses the land as an overflow car park and to host outdoor fundraising events such as car boot sales and fairs.

She added the travellers moved onto the site at around 5.30pm on Sunday and at its height there were 16 caravans parked up.

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Ms Radford said: “The business community were really concerned and, unfortunately, we had lots of phone calls that this community are in the car park.

“I went down and spoke to them and I said it’s causing us a huge amount of problems and people were very upset.

“They said they were waiting for a caravan that’s to be released to them by Derbyshire Police and that then they’ll be moving on.”

They had left the site when The Star visited on Wednsday morning.