A group of helpers went across the farmland with plastic bags

Residents near Ditchling helped carry out a clean-up operation after the group left land at Common Lane on Thursday night.

Farmer Jeremy Taylor said the area affected would have to be fenced off.

A second clear-up is also planned in nearby Burgess Hill after the same travellers left faeces in a playground.

They moved onto the farmland at Ditchling on 3 July.

A court order required them to leave by Thursday, which they did that evening.

But Mr Taylor, who leases some of the land, said when he walked into the field where about a dozen caravans had been parked, he "just didn't know what we were going to do".

Areas of grass were burnt and entire beds were left behind

The grass was littered with shards of glass, broken china, plastic and human waste.

"The biggest problem is the broken and smashed glass all over the place," he said during a clean-up on Saturday.

"We're not going to be able to graze the cattle on this particular area," he added.

Councillor Tom Jones, the Conservative representative for the Ditchling and Westmeston ward on Lewes District Council, said: "There is a policy that councils are required to provide facilities for travellers. This is not one of those facilities."

But Joe Jones, from a Canterbury-based Gypsy support group, claimed such legal sites were generally "few and far between" and an existing one at Lewes was already "overcrowded".