The owner of a golf course will have to take court action to remove travellers after an emergency order was not given in time.

Fifteen caravans and travellers moved into the car park at Benfield Valley Golf Course, in Hangleton, Hove, in January.

Police were alerted within minutes by concerned residents.

Councillor Peter Willows asked them to serve a Section 61 order, under legislation introduced by the Government last year, which has to be made within 24 hours of their arrival.

It allows police to evict the travellers if they fail to move on.

Coun Willows said: "The land is leased from the council by the golf course operator Stephen Callow, who had terrible problems when travellers moved on to the southern part of the site last year.

"Mr Callow had to get a court order to evict them last time because Section 61s did not exist then.

"He also had to bear the cost of taking legal action and of cleaning up the site.

"Hove police told him they would serve the order and arranged to meet a course representative at the car park the next day.

"He waited for them to turn up but nobody arrived and as a result the 24-hour deadline expired."

Police say they were unable to contact Mr Callow, who leases the land from Brighton and Hove City Council, to get his permission to start proceedings in time.

A spokeswoman said an inspector had arranged to meet a representative from the course within the 24 hour time limit but nobody turned up.

She said: "It seems there has been something of a breakdown in communications here.

"Section 61s are a very effective and speedy way of moving travellers on if they are served in time which, in this case, we were unable to do."

A spokeswoman for the travellers confirmed they were part of the group which was there last year.

She said: "We have come from the Worthing area and we will be here for a couple of weeks or so.

"There are four families here and we plan to stay while a couple of the women go into hospital to have babies.

"The police were here and said they would serve an order on us but they didn't manage to do it so we will stay until we have to go.

"We are not causing any problems for local people and we have asked the travellers liaison officer to provide some skips so we can keep the place tidy."