VAN dwellers are being forced to roll on after the council cracked down on their mobile homes.

Brighton and Hove City Council took legal action to force travellers off green spaces around the city.

Those parked up alongside Wild Park, Hollingbury Woods, and Ditchling Road, were all ordered to move on.

One of those was traveller Richard Brannan who told The Argus the council had blocked his van into the site he was living on near Ditchling Road.

Mr Brannan said set up home at the 39 Acres site off Ditchling Road, Brighton, where he had been living peacefully on his own.

However, on September 30, he noticed he was unable to leave because the area was blocked off at the entrance and exit.

The council said they were seeking to evict him and on Friday obtained an order from Brighton Magistrates’ Court forcing him to move his white Ford van from the land known as 39 Acres.

Magistrates also granted the council powers to enter the land and take whatever steps they needed to remove any vehicles.

One of Brighton’s most well-known new age travellers Hilaire Purbrick was also ordered to move off Golf Drive, which runs between Hollingdean and Hollingbury Woods, where he was living in a green Ivecco van.

It is not eco-warrior Mr Purbrick’s first battle with the authorities. Mr Purbrick lived in a van Whitehawk Hill allotments for 16 years before finally being turfed out by the council in 2009 and banned from returning to the site.

Mr Purbrick dug a two metre wide cave at the bottom of a 20 foot shaft, which he and other commune members used as a meditation chamber however a judge agreed with the council that it was a danger to life and children might have had a serious accident or have been killed if they entered this cave.

After his eviction he built himself a tree house at Craven Vale to live in.

In 2015 Mr Purbrick was part of a group pf squatters occupying a community centre in Littlehampton.

Another of those to be evicted from their home on wheels on Friday was Charlie Brazil, who was living in a white van in Barcombe Road , next to Wild Park.

Orders were also served on the occupants of a blue Mercedes van in Bevendean Road, and on those living in vehicles parked at Lynchet Close, in Hollingdean.

All of the eviction orders were granted under Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. Section 77 of the act gives local authorities the power to direct unauthorised campers to leave land. Section 78, if granted by a court, given them power to remove unlawful vehicles.