A HEADLESS Cross mum is calling for better measures to stop travellers setting up camps in the town after their arrival meant her son's sporting event had to be transfered to a Bromgrove venue.

Elizabeth Stuart said her son and his friends from Walkwood Middle School had to travel to Bromsgrove for athletics trials because travellers had set up camp on the Abbey Stadium running track.

And although they have now moved on, Mrs Stuart said something needed to be done about the problem for future events.

"As a parent, I cannot understand why they were allowed to stay for the time they were," said The Meadway mother.

"It's not just my kids, it's anybody who wants to use a public facility like that -- they should have no rights whatsoever to go on there and the police should have the right to get them off straight away."

Redditch Council sports services manager Dave Wheeler said use of the athletics track at the Abbey Stadium had been restricted while travellers were there for the safety of users, mainly children.

"The travellers were located directly next to the track and unfortunately, we had some incidents resulting in users being verbally threatened and intimidated. This was compounded by the fact the travellers used dogs to intimidate people further," he said.

He said travellers usually occupied the car park away from the main building and did not affect users directly but after the recent problems, meetings had been held with Environmental Health to consider methods of restricting access for travellers in the future.

Mr Wheeler added: "We are locating two adjustable height barriers on the main accesses to the site and as a secondary security measure, we have already installed a row of fixed posts to stop access across the football pitches to the bottom of the site, which includes the athletics track.

"We are also looking to put other appropriate measures around various other possible entry points to the site in the hope that as many angles as possible are considered."