UP to 15 traveller caravans are still parking illegally in the track leading to the former Dale Farm site.

Families have been parked in Oak Lane, next to the legal part of the Dale Farm site, since a week after the eviction.

Basildon Council began proceedings to move them in 2012, but it was blocked by a series of challenges that ended up in the High Court.

It got the all clear to move them after winning the case in July, but has yet to take action.

A council spokesman said: “The council is now carefully considering its options and taking further legal advice as to what is the most sensible way forward. In the meantime, we are monitoring the situation on Oak Lane on a daily basis.

“Those who have followed the Dale Farm story will know that this is a legal minefield.

“We will act and when we do, it will be in the best interest of local taxpayers. But that will be at a time of our choosing when we deem it is most prudent to do so, based on a full appraisal of all relevant factors.”

Ramsden Crays parish councillor David McPherson-Davis said: “I think the problem is they are scared if they try to evict them and there is an appeal, they will lose because they haven’t provided any new sites.”

However, Mr McPherson-Davis said claims of antisocial behaviour linked to the camp in its heyday had all but stopped since the major eviction as the majority of the 86 families had not been seen again.

Some families still illegally parked in caravans on a part of Oak Lane owned by a neighbouring settled resident are so entrenched, they have washing machines connected outside, satellite TV dishes and even a garden shed.

One elderly male traveller, a former Dale Farm resident who is now living in a touring caravan, said: “£8million it cost them, and what has it done?

“We were promised new sites, but they’ve never come, so we have just stayed on the road.

“At Dale Farm, we had shower blocks, toilets, everything.

“Now we’ve just been left living on the roadside. Was it really worth all that money to move us 50ft away? I don’t knowwhy they couldn’t just leave us to it.”