Strolling through the Sussex countryside on a summer afternoon should be a delight.

But it wasn't on Sunday close to Saddlescombe village, north of Brighton. Scores of people were holding a rave with the noise reverberating all over the Downs and cars being driven at speed through a field.

It doesn't matter much that my walk was not the most enjoyable I have ever undertaken.

What matters is that farmer Chris Williams had his hay crop ruined.

Apparently the revellers hadn't realised that on flattening the hay, they had destroyed it; but the villains who wrecked machinery in the field certainly didn't do that by accident.

A week earlier, I went for a bike ride in Benfield Valley, once a pleasant spot, north of the West Hove Sainsbury's. What should have been a green and pleasant landscape had been ruined by rubbish left by travellers who had been there on my previous visit.

The rave at Saddlescombe was the third this year held by youngsters who had forced their way on to Mr Williams' field and there were five raves there in 1999. Although he called the police, the unwelcome event still went ahead.

As for travellers, it is a rare day when I don't hear stories of how they have been ruining a golf tournament off Ditchling Road, getting on to the field of Hove Park Lower School, flooding a field at Hangleton Bottom, or leaving huge piles of refuse behind in Toad's Hole Valley.

Police and council officials do take action in some cases where travellers cause a nuisance. They successfully prevented a rave at the weekend in the old Astoria cinema in Gloucester Place, Brighton, and made legal moves to move travellers from fields off Ditchling Road.

They have difficulties in implementing the law as it stands. And the perception among many suburbanites and country lovers is that not nearly enough is being done.

I don't hold the view that all travellers and ravers are scum who shouldn't be allowed within a 40-mile radius.

I appreciate the fun you can have in a field listening to loud music and the freedom of moving from place to place in caravans. But we live in a crowded county in a crowded country and we all have to rub along together.

There is already an official travellers' site at Horsdean, north of Patcham, but it is plainly not big enough. At least one other is needed, probably somewhere near the bypass, such as Hangleton Bottom, and it is high time neighbouring authorities also played their part in delivering new sites.

It might be possible to find an official rave site in somewhere like the old Shoreham cement works, although this would be more difficult because of the numbers involved and the way sound travels.

Once this has been achieved, then it should be possible to crack down quickly and efficiently on people who think they can pitch up anywhere without any thought about the effect on their neighbours and anyone else who happens to be passing by.

New powers for councils on the lines of those Tories are proposing, such as forbidding the return of travellers to sites on or near previous occupations, would also be welcome so that the authorities can be seen more often to be acting in the public interest than they appear at present.