From Cambridge News
Hundreds of angry villagers fearful about the proposed reopening of a controversial Travellers’ site packed out a public meeting.
More than 250 people last night attended the event in Meldreth, which was hastily arranged after South Cambridgeshire District Council said it wanted to buy and refurbish the pitches at nearby Mettle Hill.
Residents said they feared a return of the crime and vandalism which blighted the encampment before it was shut down in 1996, while occupants of a travelling Showpeople’s site which stands opposite said they would have to move out if the plans went ahead. Now an online petition is to be launched against plans.
At the meeting, Paul Norman, of Whitecroft Road, Meldreth, said: “No-one here wants the Travellers to come. Meldreth has never been so quiet and peaceful as it is now.
“We all get on well with the Showmen but no-one wants to see the kind of terror that the Travellers caused again.
“It was a complete nightmare – they would walk into the village shop and steal whatever they liked. They threw bricks and even the police were frightened of them.
“We have to stand up for ourselves now.”
The council has said it was the occupants of the site that were to blame, not the site itself, and have pledged it would be carefully managed.
But the meeting heard there was concern about the lack of consultation, and the Showpeople’s threat to move out has raised the prospect that their land will be occupied by Travellers too.
Gabrielle Bugg, a representative of the Showman’s Guild, said: “We get on very well with the people of Meldreth and we have invested in the site.
“If the Travellers needed the site so much, then why did they trash it in the first place?”
With the district council’s cabinet set to back the project on Thursday, Meldreth Parish Council has announced Mettle Hill will be the subject of a second public meeting – at 8pm on Tuesday, in the village hall.
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