Travellers pitched up at a shopping centre car park yesterday.

Traders at the precinct in Rainham arrived at work this morning to discover several caravans had moved onto the site.

Mary Bell, who works at the charity shop Sense, said she believed they arrived overnight.

She said: "They are taking up a sizeable chunk of the car park."

Medway Council's head of regulatory services, James Brown, said: “We will be following a civil legal procedure to move the group on.”

A shopper at the scene this morning, who asked not to be named, said: "I have counted 14 vans there.

"They have their generators all set up and their cars are happily taking up shoppers' spaces.

"I have just seen another one rock up, they have blocked one of the right of ways with a van."

Police were called at 4.20pm on Sunday, November 3 to reports of an unauthorised encampment.

A spokesman said: "The matter is being dealt with by the landowner, as is the normal process for these matters."

Medway Council attended on Monday (November 4) morning and told the travellers that they would have to leave by the following morning, or the council would be obtaining a removal order.

They had left the site by Wednesday morning.

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