Campaigner ‘gutted’ as Ringland Gypsy site remains in plan - Norfolk

From the South Wales Argus

A GYPSY and Traveller site campaigner has expressed his disappointment with a failed bid to have a proposed residential site knocked out of Newport council’s development plan.

Frank Weston, of the Ringland Matters Group, which has campaigned against the proposed Hartridge Farm Road site, raised questions over the process following the full council meeting on Tuesday night.

Meanwhile, Councillor Allan Morris, a member of the scrutiny committee that drew up a proposed list of Gypsy sites for the local development plan, said the group had consulted everybody, with a large contribution from the Gypsy families themselves.

Ringland Labour councillor Malcolm Linton made a vain attempt to have the road safety site at Hartridge Farm Road removed from the revised Local Development Plan as a Gypsy and Traveller site.

A majority of councillors pushed ahead with sending the LDP out to consultation.

Mr Weston said he was “disappointed and gutted” with the decision by Newport councillors not to block its inclusion in the LDP.

He claimed that Cllr Morris did not appear to know what constituted a pitch at the meeting – with it emerging that the Hartridge site could have a maximum of 129 caravans if three caravans occupied each of the 43 pitches.

Cllr Morris had told the meeting that the committee had not been told space for 129 caravans was needed.

Mr Weston also raised concerns over a recent Gypsy consultation where families were asked which of the options from the scrutiny committee’s plan they preferred – but options other than Hartridge would have seen them split up.

“These people are very strong in their family ties. They take the lesser of two evils,” he said.

Labour’s Cllr Morris, of the Lliswerry ward, said the way that the figures were presented on caravans by officers at the meeting came as a surprise to some on the committee.

The debate did not reflect the work that had gone into the scrutiny group, he said.

He said that the 129 caravans cited at the meeting was a “theoretical number” based on everyone in the family having their own caravan.

“I’m sure it won’t be anywhere near that figure,” he said.

He said it hadn’t come across at the meeting that “we consulted everybody and there was a large contribution from the Gypsy families themselves”.

The scrutiny committee was given a task where it was impossible to please everybody, he added.

Emma Corten, a Ringland Labour councillor who had supported Cllr Linton’s amendment, said she would continue to work with and support the residents of Llanwern and Ringland wards, as well as “the Traveller family who told us they don’t want to live at this site”.