A KIRKLEES councillor has been threatened with legal action by irate gypsies.

President of the Gypsy Council Hughie Smith said the brain of new cabinet member and Mirfield councillor Martyn Bolt had gone "into retirement" before its owner.

The spat happened after Tory Clr Bolt said a tough line would be taken with illegal gypsy camps.

The Examiner told last week how a group of travellers had parked their caravans on a children's playground off Somerset Road in Almondbury just hours before bailiffs were due to evict the group from a playing field in Fanny Moor Lane in Lowerhouses.

But Mr Smith said the families would not have been there if Kirklees Council had an official caravan site for travellers.

Mr Smith said the council's past searches for an official site were a joke in his community.

He added: " Successive working parties had done more travelling in their efforts to look for possible sites - all of which were turned down, often on the weakest of excuses - than the gypsies and travellers themselves!"

Mr Smith said Clr Bolt's remarks could be laying himself open to accusations of racism - gypsies and travellers were recognised as an ethnic group under the 1976 Race Relations Act.

Mr Smith added: "This leaves the door open to possible future legal action under that Act against both him and his Cabinet colleagues."

However Mr Smith said they were willing to hold out the olive branch and enter into talks with Clr Bolt.

But he said the discussions would have to be acted upon rather than being a "face-saving exercise".

Clr Bolt dismissed Mr Smith's attack.

He said: "I don't remember seeing Mr Smith at all the conferences on this issue as a representative of the travelling community.

"Any problems he may have had with the previous administration should not reflect on us."

Clr Bolt, who is responsible for highways, said as far as legal action goes Mr Smith could "take action and see where it goes" as he was not aware of any racist comments.

He added: "I've got friends in the travelling community who would only be too happy to rebut his accusations.

"The question is when is the travelling community going to accept responsibility for its actions - trespass and damaging public property - and say these are unacceptable?"

* Kirklees Council was granted an order by magistrates on Tuesday to evict travellers at the playground just off Somerset Road.