MORE than 100 eastern European migrants living in a disused holiday camp are being forced to leave after locals launched a petition, claiming they had created an "intimidating atmosphere".
The agricultural workers have been living in the former South Downs Holiday Village in Bracklesham, near Chichester, after it closed down in January.
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Furious locals launched a petition against the "ludicrous decision" to house the workers in the tiny village, although others set up a counter petition calling for the "hard working men and women" to stay put.
The parish of East Wittering and Bracklesham has a population of just over 4,000.
But the workers have reportedly been given 28 days to leave by Chichester District Council after it ruled that using the site as permanent accommodation was "in breach of planning control".
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The village was bought by housing developer Seaward Properties for £2.5million, and 120 workers were moved in as part of a joint venture between management company Cre8 and recruitment company Pro-Force, reports the Chichester Observer.
It is not clear what will happen to the 120 workers living at the site, who are reported to be fruit pickers paying just £44.80 a week in rent.
More than 1,000 people signed the petition "Say NO! to housing hundreds of workers in disused South Downs", which said there was "simply nothing for this amount of young males to do in this village".
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The petition claimed groups of young men sitting on grass verges and drinking in local pubs was creating an "intimidating atmosphere".
It also said the seaside resort's roads, doctor's surgeries and other infrastructure could not cope with the huge influx of people.
But a counter petition said the workers were "doing no harm" and called for them to be allowed to stay.
A council spokesman said: “We’ve now gathered the evidence that we require and have assessed the current use of the accommodation against the current planning permission.
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“Taking account of this information we have served a breach of condition notice on the management agents Cre8.
“This requires the company to stop using the holiday accommodation for residential purposes within 28 days from the day the notice is served.
“We are aware that two petitions have been started.
"We feel that we need to make people aware that we already have consultation processes in place for all licensing and planning applications and so we do not accept petitions relating to these areas of work.”
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