Residents sick of travellers setting up camp near their homes want Bradford Council to close off the area or build on it to keep them out.

People living in and around Butler Street breathed a sigh of relief as some of the travellers began to leave yesterday after three weeks.

Twenty caravans pitched up last month for a travellers' wedding and residents say they made their lives a misery.

They listed children racing around on quad and motorbikes, noise from buzzing generators, loose horses and animal mess on pavements around the site among their complaints.

Graham Towers, who lives nearby, said the area had become a regular haunt for travellers over the years.

He says he got in touch with the Council on the first day the travellers appeared but nothing was done, although he was told there had been other complaints.

He said: "I've no objection to people living how they want to live but when it adversely affects other people in a residential area who are paying Council Tax and water rates, then it's not fair. I resent it.

"You have to walk a zig-zag course around all the faeces, horses and quad bikes. The generators are buzzing late on into the night. A lot of residents are sick of it. This area is down at heel enough without it being made worse by travellers.

"We want the Council to put permanent stone boulders to keep them out and stop them from coming back."

Postman Brian Aikman said the past three weeks have been "murderous" with fireworks being set off in the early hours and "cheeky" children riding quadbikes around the streets.

He said: "I've complained to the Council. The mess they've left is disgusting. One way of stopping that lot from coming back would be to build on it."

Traveller Jay Harrison, 27, accused people living nearby for dumping the rubbish, letting off fireworks and riding the quadbikes to put the blame on them.

He said: "People from the estates are just trying to make us look bad. We've even had drug dealers coming round at night trying to sell us things."

Wajeed Malik said he had seen travellers bring back rubble and gardening waste in their vans after doing odd jobs.

A Council spokesman said the travellers were on the move and Council workers would soon be clearing up the area.

She added: "Council officials are meeting a contractor to look at ways of preventing them from getting back on to the site but they don't want to reveal what they are just yet."

A group of travellers moved on to a recreation ground in Shipley on Monday.

The camp of seven caravans, several cars and a horse set up on land off Carr Lane, Windhill.

Councillor Phillip Thornton (Lab, Shipley East) said: "We have had contact with them and they said they were here for a wedding of a traveller at the camp in Esholt on Saturday.

"So far we've not had any complaints and they've promised they will be gone by Monday."

Sergeant Paul Robinson, of Problem Orientated Policing team, said the group moved from a site in Ilkley which was left in a clean and tidy state.