Distraught travellers say their mobile homes have been taken away after they were evicted by enforcement officers earlier this week.

Some have become homeless after a team sent by Medway Council arrived at land off the Lower Rainham Road early Monday morning.

Families living in static homes at The Orchard were woken by the sound of fences being taken down. They say they were given no notice the action was being taken that day.

Their spokesman James Golby is now sleeping in pick-up truck while his wife Tracey and children are staying with her mum.

Mr Golby, 38, said: "Everyone is very upset and we have no idea what to do now. The council are ignoring us and not taking into account we have got young children who have lost their homes."

He added: "Contractors are digging up the place."

Mr Golby went online to thank people for their support and also thanked people who have re-homed their animals.

There were seven plots of land at the site, each individually owned, with static caravans and wooden 'day houses' as well as gardens and play areas for children, horses stables and a paddock. But the families do not have permission to live there.

The travellers bought the land in 2020 and say they applied for planning permission to live there, but the application wasn't accepted by Medway Council.

After the purchase, they discovered there was a previous enforcement notice issued in 2017, preventing anyone from living there. But they say they knew nothing about it until months after moving in.

Mr Golby said: "I understand technicalities happen, especially when it comes to planning. But we are not even having a conversation with anyone. "

On the morning of the eviction, he said:"We had women and children crying. We were woken up at 7am. We had no notice, they just arrived and started smashing fences up. My four-year-old was hiding under her pillow.".

One woman, who did not want to be named, said: "When we bought the land, nothing came up on the land searches that there was an enforcement notice. There is nothing on the land registry.

"Now we are going to be homeless. My son is in Year 1 at Riverside school, he is settled there. If we have to leave I don't know where we are going to end up.

"We had no warning, they didn't tell us a date they would be coming down here. At least if we had been given that, we could have had some sort of say. We could have had the paperwork ready to go to court."

Mr Golby, said: "We were told to seek legal advice so we did, we have a solicitor and a planning agent.

"We were trying to get the council to accept the (planning) application. We thought we had more time."

The dad-of-five added: "We are just families trying to get on with our lives.

"Our kids go to local schools. We can't live at the side of the road any more, that way of life has gone."

A spokesman for Medway Council said: "Unfortunately, the occupants do not have planning permission to live on this site. We served an enforcement notice in 2017 which prevented residential occupation of this agricultural field.

“The occupants moved onto the site after the enforcement notice came into effect. We have provided them with copies of the enforcement notice and, over the last 12 months, have advised them of the consequences of occupying the site with the notice in effect.

"Several letters were hand delivered to the occupants warning them that enforcement action would be taken if they didn’t comply with the notice.”

A petition and GoFundMe page has been set up in support of the travellers.