Steps have been taken to make sure travellers living on one of Coverack’s car parks cannot stay permanently - although their eviction has stalled once again.

St Keverne parish councillors unanimously objected to a bid by one of the travellers, Sally Bowers, for a certificate of lawfulness that would allow her to remain there indefinitely.

Her application has outraged councillors, with Russell Peters saying: “The whole charade of people who feel they have such precedence over everybody else and they don’t comply with the laws of the land we all agree with – I’m sorry, these people are pure parasites on us all.

“In reality you and I are paying the price in our rates for what we’re failing to get off our car park. This car park is for the benefit of the parish of St Keverne.”

Councillor Bill Frisken said the land for the car park was bought with taxpayer money, to relieve the “awful parking situation” in the village and pay for services such as the public toilets out of the takings.

“To claim it, as this parasite has done, is theft. That is what the people of the parish are telling me – they consider it theft,” he added.

Councillor Anthony Richards questioned whether the bid was even lawful, as the land had been bought under a compulsory purchase order for express use as a car park – and he believed if it stopped being used as one, the land would revert back to its original owner.

A court hearing to evict the travellers for good ground to a halt last week after Cornwall Council failed to provide necessary documents in time for the hearing at Truro County Court on Wednesday.

Reporting back to her fellow councillors the following day, Sarah Lyne said that the judge needed a welfare, health and needs assessment before making a decision.

She said: “Yet again we have been let down by Cornwall Council, as we have been all along.”

The hearing has been adjourned for a month so that the information can be sent.

Responding to a question from a member of the public, acting chairman Roger Richards said he would be “very surprised” if the council did not discuss applying to Cornwall Council for costs relating to the delay.

A new van appeared in the car park last month, but had since been moved on again, members were told.

They agreed they needed a policy in place so that should any more travellers arrive they could be removed from the site quickly.

The council also heard that quite a large amount of water had been lost the previous week, when the pipe used by the travellers to take water from the back of the public toilets in the car park burst.

Councillor Bill Frisken said he managed to stop the water from flowing out, but had since noticed there was also “quite a bad leak” from the tap there.

This tap, he said, had been replaced with a “special mechanism” that required a specific tool to stop it.

He was concerned that currently the parish council would have to cover the cost of this lost water, using taxpayer money, and he believed Cornwall Council’s gypsy traveller liaison officer Phil Eaton should be contacted, with a view to his department covering at least some of the payment on behalf of the travellers.