A TOP Bolton curry house is blaming gipsies for a catastrophic loss of trade.

Award-winning Sunar Gaw says travellers pitching up at Burnden Park opposite the once thriving Indian restaurant are turning loyal customers away.

Manager Abdul Shahid said his takings had tumbled by a third and warned his business would go under if the trend continued.

"Ever since the gipsies have been coming to Burnden we've had a nightmare," he said.

"It's an inconvenience to residents, but we are the ones who are being hit in the pocket."

Mr Shahid said customers at Sunar Gaw - voted BEN Readers' Restaurant of the Year in 1995 - had told him that the regular large presence of travellers so close to the eaterie in Manchester Road had turned them away.

"People say they drive past and carry on driving because they're worried about parking their cars," he said.

"It's so frustrating because we're doing exactly the same things that made us successful. But now we're being penalised by something totally out of our hands."

Mr Shahid, aged 30, who started Sunar Gaw six years ago and won votes from hundreds of readers to claim the BEN award, is now calling on the authorities to turf out the travellers - and keep them out.

"This just can't be allowed to go on," he said.

But Bolton Council, which has started legal proceedings on behalf of Bolton Wanderers to evict the latest large band of gipsies, said the law dictated that it took time to act.

A spokesman said court orders should be issued in time to evict the travellers early next week.

It is also understood that Wanderers, who plan to demolish their former home, are reluctant to erect barriers to stop trespassers because of gipsies breaking through a variety of obstacles, sometimes using cutting equipment, to trespass onto sites.

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