Public services will have to be cut to cover the spiralling legal costs of evicting gipsies from an illegal camp in Somerset, the Western Daily Press can reveal.

A Freedom of Information Request submitted by the Daily Press to Taunton Deane Borough Council about the cost of the four-year battle to move on travellers from a sprawling camp in North Curry village has revealed the taxpayer has so far forked out more than £100,000 with yet more earmarked for court hearings.

Ross Henley, leader of the Liberal Democrat controlled council, said: "It is quite right the public should know how much this is costing the council. We, like every other council in the country, is facing the most difficult financial period for years and the North Curry situation is making matters worse.

"We have already had to make cuts and we will have to make more this year.

"We are having to look at ways to keep council tax low and this money could have been much better spent."

A convoy of travellers rolled into Oxen Lane in North Curry, outside Taunton, in October 2004 and set up camp in a five-acre field without planning permission.

The gipsies ignored council orders to leave and despite a ruling from the Secretary of State declaring the camp illegal, the 16-plot site remains.

Six gipsy families submitted fresh applications for four extra pitches to the council's planning department in March 2007. They were unanimously refused. The families lodged an appeal which was thrashed out and dismissed in a four-day hearing with a government planning inspector.

Another planning inquiry was heard after a separate appeal by other traveller families. Again, it was dismissed after several days of legal argument. And it is the continuous cycle of planning applications, refusals, appeals and court cases that has landed the council with a whopping legal bill.

Taunton Deane's legal services manager Judith Jackson said: "The costs incurred so far in relation to the Oxen Lane issue slightly exceeds £100,000.

"This is comprised mainly of legal fees incurred by employing a barrister for both the injunction proceedings and the various public inquiries plus a firm of London solicitor to act as our agents in relation to the injunction proceedings.

"About £15,000 are the fees of the planning witness who has been employed to deal with the council's case at the public inquiries and about the balance will be miscellaneous costs relating to such things as court fees, fees for process servers, hiring of halls and equipment for the public inquiries."

Mrs Jackson said further costs would be incurred with another public inquiry in January and further court proceedings in relation to the injunction.

The numerous planning hearings have been precursors to a High Court injunction which could see the gipsies evicted from the camp.

The gipsies have also had to bear a heavy financial burden to fight their own corner in the row. They insist they have nowhere else to go and should be entitled to live the life they chose. Each planning inquiry since battle lines were drawn has proved there is a chronic shortage of traveller pitches in Taunton Deane and throughout Somerset.

Chairman of the Romany Gipsy Advisory Group South West, Sally Tucker-Woodbury, said the Oxen Lane families had been let down by the local authority. She said: "The council has supposedly introduced more sites and been given money to develop more travellers sites.

"But the families have already approached the council to find out what other plots are available and they were told there aren't any. What are they supposed to do? They have nowhere to go."

Last month the Government announced more than £1 million will be spent on providing sites for West travellers to avoid tension after an increase in the number camping illegally.

The moves should help cut legal costs for other councils that have been fighting battles against illegal camps.

Tens of thousands of pounds has been spent by other local authorities left with planning headaches.

Gipsies at a site in Minety, North Wiltshire, were given permission to stay last year after five years of wrangles.

Parish councillors in Semington, Wiltshire, are calling for a judicial review or asking the district auditor to look at the way in which West Wiltshire district councillors gave planning permission for a notorious travellers' site on the edge of the village.