A leading Conservative has warned that council taxpayers face rising costs from the influx of Romanian and Bulgarian immigrants set to start tomorrow – and claims that Roma are already causing trouble by begging aggressively and defecating in public.

Philippa Roe, leader of Westminster City Council, said that local authorities had ‘no idea’ how many Eastern Europeans would come to Britain after immigration restrictions are lifted on January 1.

And a police commissioner in the Midlands revealed that more crimes are committed by Romanians than by any other group of foreign nationals in his area even before the rules have changed.

Many Tories and immigration campaigners have been warning for month that tens of thousands of Romanian and Bulgarian citizens are set to come to Britain when laws banning them from are repealed tomorrow.

Ms Roe said today that some members of the Roma community have already been causing trouble in Central London with their aggressive and unhygienic behaviour.

‘You’ve only got to wander around Marble Arch at 7.30 in the morning to see the camps,’ she told The World at One on BBC Radio 4.

‘We have people walking out of their front door to find people sleeping on their front doorsteps, people defecating on their front doorstep – it’s extremely unpleasant and it goes with the very aggressive begging and pickpocketing and other sorts of crime in the area which affects both residents and tourists.

‘It’s this minority one is really concerned about, but it is this minority that has this really big impact.’

She added: ‘We have been trying hard to make sure we are prepared but one of the issues we face is we just have no idea how many people are going to come to London and draw on our resources.’

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Eastern European inmates in British jails are costing taxpayers just under £73million a year, official figures show.

Romanian and Polish prisoners have swollen their ranks by 60 per cent since 2010, bringing the total to 2,430 from 10 countries formerly behind the Iron Curtain.

Three years ago there were just 1,490 inmates from those nations in our jails, where it costs £30,000 to hold a prisoner each year.

The Ministry of Justice figures reveal Poles now form the biggest ­foreign contingent in British jails, with Romanians at Number five on the list, up from 400 in 2010 to 532.

In women’s jails, with 46 prisoners, they are the second biggest group, behind Nigerians on 47.

Romanians are most frequently jailed for theft, pick-pocketing and shoplifting, as well as burglary, robbery, fraud and sex offences.

Ukip Deputy Leader Paul Nuttall said: “It was madness that in 2004 we opened our doors to much of Eastern Europe.

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