New Traveller sites needed for growing population in Hull and East Riding - Yorkshire

From the Hull Daily Mail

THE East Riding's growing Gypsy and Traveller population has sparked plans for two new camps.

East Riding Council has three Traveller sites. They are in Eppleworth Road and off Harland Way in Cottingham and at Woldgate in Bridlington.

The East Riding's Traveller population stands at 488 people, but there is overcrowding.

The council has identified the need to provide a further 25 pitches on two sites that will accommodate about 100 extra people.

The proposed locations are Woldgate and Eppleworth Road, next to the existing sites, and a new location south of Moor Lane at Carnaby.

The extra sites provision will form part of the East Riding Council Local Plan, a blueprint for development from 2014 to 2029.

John Craig, East Riding Council forward planning and housing strategy manager, said: "What we are looking at is future needs. We are required to identify pitches for the first five years of the plan.

"The new pitches we're seeking to identify are to meet the needs of the resident population, which is increasing."

Rising Traveller and Gypsy populations are an issue across the UK.

Hidden Voices, the organisation that liaised between local authorities and Travellers' groups, has now been disbanded because its lottery funding ran out.

Elaine Bratton, Gypsy and Traveller community development worker for Hull, says overcrowding is a problem across East Yorkshire.

She said: "The sites have been built for 30-odd years and now the children have grown up and they want homes of their own.

"They want to live in caravans because that's what they know.

"Some of the older generation who have moved off the sites and into houses move back to be near their families."