POLICE will be able to arrest travellers and seize caravans if they set up illegal campsites on private or public land.

Strict new laws will make it a criminal offence to occupy land with the intention of setting up home there, without getting prior permission.

Home Secretary Priti Patel has outlined proposals to give police the power to remove unwelcome visitors.

Currently, trespass is considered a civil matter meaning landowners face a long and expensive legal battle to remove offenders.

“Unauthorised encampments can cause misery to those who live nearby, with reports of damage to property, noise, abuse and littering,” Ms Patel told The Sun on Sunday.

She added: “The public want their communities protected and for the police to crack down on trespassers.

“Our proposals aim to ensure these encampments can be challenged and removed as quickly as possible.”

In the Republic of Ireland, “unauthorised encampment” is a criminal offence. However there is also a statutory requirement for local authorities to provide sites for travellers.

Ms Patel is aiming to copy the Irish criminal offence system and is seeking views from councils, police forces, travellers and the public on alternative measures.

Plans include reducing the number of vehicles from six to two before police can act and allowing officers to redirect offenders to official sites.

Changes will also include increasing the time offenders are banned from returning which will be raised from three months to a year.

Meanwhile Labour has published a paper on land ownership which has been dubbed a “hard-left charter for trespassers”. The report outlines how the party would reverse the criminalisation of trespass and squatting.

Therefore squatters would have the right to set up in homes and illegal campers could occupy private and public land.

In September residents and business owners in Hove were left furious when 50 caravans pitched up on the seafront on a protected lawn site near to the picturesque promenade.

Aerial photographs taken when they first arrived showed the traveller site as an eyesore on the waterfront and close-up shots revealed rubbish strewn across the neatly-trimmed grass on which the vehicles were parked.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and shadow Chancellor John McDonnell have previously called for anti-squatting laws to be repealed in order to give activists the right to seize private property.

Mr Corbyn has also endorsed a campaign that would reinstate taxpayer-funded legal aid to people accused of trespassing offences.