A group of travellers have been asked to leave after pitching up on a village green.

About a dozen caravans were spotted on council-owned land on the corner of St Benedicts Road and Paddlesworth Road in Snodland yesterday morning.

Police were called at 8.35am to a report of an unauthorised encampment on the land.

The spokesman said: “Officers have attended the scene and are liaising the local authority who are the landowners for this location.”

Tonbridge and Malling enforcement officers visited yesterday and issued the people on the site with a legal order requiring them to leave by 4pm today.

It comes as a group of travellers were served a notice to leave council land in Leybourne on Tuesday.

Half a dozen caravans were spotted at the playing fields off Oxley Shaw Lane, and were thought to have arrived on Monday evening.

Last year new legislation was brought in to tackle illegal pitches on other people’s land or in local communities.

Under the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, police in England and Wales were given new powers to address harms caused by such unauthorised encampments and new guidance was published.

It comes amid a national shortage of gypsy and traveller sites with no plots currently available in Kent.