LISA Macmillan’s dream of running a café at Wild Park to help provide for her family has turned into a nightmare recently.

One of the things that must trouble her on top of her immediate problems of having travellers outside must be the fact a new permanent travellers’ site has opened only a few miles away.

Residents have long been told it is more difficult to move travellers on when there is no transit site for them to go to.

This remains the case as the transit site at Horsdean is yet to open. But the permanent plots at the same site are open and yet there are still hundreds of travellers in the city.

When the transit site does open it will only have 21 pitches, being dwarfed by the 40 caravans at Wild Park, for example.

Probably more galling for the café owner is the fact that only last week councillors voted to bring in Public Space Protection Orders.

Wild Park is among the 12 parks and green spaces where travellers could be moved on. The problem is officials will not be able to use them until they become live at the end of the year.

In the meantime Miss Macmillan has lost her income. Her staff have too. There needs to be stronger and quicker action available sooner to help these people.

And in the interim the city council must show some understanding and give some leeway over the rent on the café.

When the new powers come in, Preston Park will be listed and thankfully the A259 from Black Rock to Hove Lagoon.

But there are bound to be other places and we need to be thinking about other solutions as these new powers and the transit site may well not be the answer.