An ongoing battle with a group of travellers looks set to continue until the end of the week after they ignored a council order to move.

A group of caravans has been parked in the Parkway surface car park, behind Cineworld in Bury St Edmunds, for nearly two weeks.St Edmundsbury Borough Council issued the group with a section 77 order to leave by 10am today, but seven caravans remain this evening.

The council is now due to appear at Bury St Edmunds Magistrates Court at 10pm on Thursday to obtain a section 78 order – at a cost of £200 – which will give the travellers 24 hours to leave.

St Edmundsbury has been embroiled in a battle with the travellers since March this year.

In this time, the travellers have tended to ignore section 77 notices, and moved once a section 78 has been issued.

A spokeswoman for St Edmundsbury Borough Council said: “The protocol we use for managing unauthorised traveller encampments is a county-wide one that brings together all the agencies. We’ve followed that set protocol.

“This is a cycle the travellers are very familiar with, so we weren’t surprised given that we are in a cycle – there’s a clear pattern.”

This will be the 12th section 78 notice issued to the same group of travellers, each costing the taxpayer £200.

Travellers living at the site declined to comment this morning. The spokeswoman also added that the travellers would not incur any charges for illegal parking.

She said: “They are not using it as a car park.

“For a car park, you bring your vehicle in, and the purpose of the car park is to have somewhere to park your car to pop out.

“They’re using the car park as a living space.”

The council is in the final stages of preparing a case to get an injunction stopping travellers parking on certain sites.