A councillor had to be corrected after complaining of ‘Romanian’ travellers messing up the area.

Conservative councillor John Glover said he felt appalled by mess left by ‘Romanian’ travellers while speaking of a visit to an industrial estate at Kilwinning's community council.

He said: “I was absolutely appalled by the amount of rubbish left by Romanian travellers.

“This is a real cracker, when the young man from the council went to investigate, he came back and he said there’s no Romanian travellers there anymore, and I said no they’ve moved to Dalry, they’re round the corner from me now. Eventually got rid of them but quite a problem.”

Community Councillor Yvonne McLellan interjected saying: “The last acceptable racism.”

The Dalry man asked: “Is that racist? They are Romanians.”

Community councillor Blair Kerr said: “I’m the traveller co-ordinator for North Ayrshire Council and can guarantee you they were not Romanian.”

The conservative councillor said: “I’ll re phrase it, Eastern European.”

Chair Jackie Hamilton said: “I think we’ll just say people from the travelling community.”