Bradford Council is considering following in the footsteps of Wakefield which has designated no-go areas for travellers to stop illegal camps.

Officers are discussing with Wakefield Council how it is using section 30 of the 2003 Anti Social Behaviour Act to ban travellers in five areas where there have been problems in the past. The Act gives police the power to immediately remove the travellers or arrest them if they enter the sites.

The authority has become the first in Britain to designate exclusion zones for travellers, regardless of whether it owns the site.

Bradford Council's legal department has already considered banning travellers from city centre car parks which they have taken over on a number of occasions.

Travellers have moved from car park to car park while the Council waited to go to the County Court for possession orders for each one.

Today there were calls for Bradford Council to follow the stand made by Wakefield amid fears Bradford would become a target for travellers forced out of the neighbouring authority.

Councillor Anne Hawkesworth, executive member for the environment, which includes responsibility for travellers' sites, said officers had contacted Wakefield Council to discuss how it had used legislation to implement the project.

Coun Hawkesworth said: "The problem of any authority taking this route is the dispersal effect it has on neighbouring districts."

A businessman, who did not want to be named for fear of reprisals, called on Bradford Council to follow Wakefield's lead.

He said travellers had made an illegal camp outside his business in Bowling Back Lane for a fortnight and left rubbish which cost £2,000 to clear.

Val Summerscales, secretary of Bradford Chamber of Trade, said: "I think Bradford will have to do this now because of the dispersal into other authorities of travellers who cannot camp in Wakefield."

She said the Council had tried to ease the situation by providing official sites for travellers at Mary Street, Bowling and Esholt but the problems remained.

But the Gipsy Council is urging the travellers to take legal advice.

It said travellers should see lawyers and take Wakefield Coun-cil to court for discrimination.

But Mike Cartwright, policy executive for Bradford Chamber of Commerce, said: "With such a long record of turmoil there is little empathy for travellers here."