GYPSIES have vowed they will find a site in Huddersfield.

Travellers say they are happy to fund an official base without council help.

And they revealed they are actively looking for one in Huddersfield.

President of the National Gypsy Council, Hughie Smith, spoke out after a House of Commons committee said local authorities should be forced to set aside land for caravans.

Kirklees Council says it is open to suggestions - but has no such schemes of its own in the pipeline.

Mr Smith, 78, who lived on a gypsy site at Great Northern Street in Huddersfield for a time as a boy, said: "There are 3,500 gypsy caravans on the road in the UK with nowhere legal to park.

"Now, I believe there could be an end to this problem within a few years. My dream is for all travellers to be able to camp legally, with proper facilities."

Leeds and Bradford already have well-established sites, run by council officials.

But Mr Smith says the Gypsy Council operates 21 of its own across Britain - and wants to set up another in Huddersfield.

He revealed £500,000 is a typical cost for establishing a site with kitchens, toilets, baths, showers and even garden areas for longer-term residents.

Mr Smith, who lives in a caravan on a site near Wetherby with his wife Mary, claimed Kirklees has looked at 200 possible sites since the 1970s.

No plans have got past early planning stages, after objections from residents.

Mr Smith said: "We're now looking for land to buy. A few years ago we were hopeful of getting a site off Leeds Road, but it fell through."

Kirklees Council's cabinet member for development services, Clr Andrew Pinnock, said the council had no plans to provide any sites.

He said: "There's been pressure before but it's never come to anything.

"As far as I know, nothing's ever got as far as a planning application, though one or two sites have been suggested."

A few years ago, the authority had a scrutiny group looking at gypsy issues. Conservative Clr Martyn Bolt remembers: "Members visited Council sites in Bradford.

"We were told that some people had lived on the same plot for more than 20 years and Bradford Council still had to deal with illegal encampments.

"Despite a high proportion of the people receiving benefits, the wardens accepted that they were carrying on their own businesses. In all it suggested that council-funded sites did not solve the problem they were intended to."

Some residents were outraged when the Kirklees considered giving illegal traveller sites free rubbish collection, free toilets and other benefits.

The suggestion was made by the Liberal Democrats, Labour and Green groups as a response to the scrutiny report.

Mr Smith believes refuse collection would help solve problems with rubbish left behind by campers.

Clr Pinnock says the authority is open to suggestions for places for officials camps, if travellers or landowners came forward with ideas.

Asked about how gypsies would fund a site, Mr Smith said: "There are millionaire gypsies just like there are millionaires in any community.

"Many families made their money in iron and did a lot to help the war effort."

Mr Smith, the son of a horse dealer and an Irish gypsy, has been president of the National Gypsy Council for 31 years.

He says: "My wife and I once bought a house and stayed there for two nights before we decided we didn't like it.

"It felt claustrophobic, as if the walls were closing in."

* In recent years, problem sites for illegal camps have included land off Leeds Road, and at Newsome and Lowerhouses.

* Gypsy leaders have previously suggested possible official sites off Kings Mill Lane, Huddersfield, Gledholt Sidings and in the Wakefield Road area.

* Places earmarked by Kirklees Council in the past have included the site of a former isolation hospital at Birstall, land off Red Doles Lane, Huddersfield, and land near the Three Nuns in Cooper Bridge.