Travellers sites at Greengate Lane and Thurcaston Road set to be approved - Leicestershire

From the Leicester Mercury

Controversial plans to develop official Gypsy and Travellers camps on the northern edge of Leicester are set to be approved next week.

The city council has arranged a special meeting of its planning committee on Wednesday October 30 where councillors will discuss the contentious schemes.

The council identified two plots - at Thurcaston Road on the former Corah Sports Ground and at Greengate Lane near Birstall - for pitches and buildings housing showers and kitchens.

It says the sites are needed to reduce the number of illegal camps in the city by providing Travellers with more managed accommodation.

Planning officers have considered the schemes submitted by housing association Framework which would manage the pitches if they were given permission.

Framework has been granted £4.3 million from the Homes and Communities Agency to develop the sites.

Both projects have been recommended for approval despite officials accepting they do not comply with the council’s policy on green wedges.

Officers say the impact on the green wedge is out weighed by the need to provide sites.

A report says both sites are “relatively small scale and would not cause the merging of the built up areas of Leicester and Birstall.”

The LE4 Action Group has been opposing the sites and collected 2,700 names on a petition against them though some 2,000 were discounted as they were people living outside the city boundary.

Group spokesman Terry McGreal said: “It’s not a great surprise that these are recommended for approval. A lot have people have assumed this is a foregone conclusion but we are looking at the planning reports and talking to our solicitors.

“Some people are a little campaign weary but we are still hopeful. “The council has accepted these breach the green wedge policy and we disagree that the need for them outweighs that.”

Parish councils in Birstall and Thurcaston have objected to the plans as has the Belgrave Bowling Club next to the Thurcaston Road site.

The club says its grounds have become illegal camp sites twice in the past and fears more problems in the future.

The council has received around 170 objections to the sites on a range of grounds from highways safety to fears of increased crime and anti-social behaviour and concern that the Traveller residents could suffer disturbance from busy roads nearby.

There have been two letters in support of the Thurcaston Road site which say it would be hardly noticeable and a good use of the land.

City mayor Sir Peter Soulsby has said he believes the sites are appropriate but stressed the matter is now entirely out of his hands with the planning committee having the final say.

He said there was a need to have authorised sites, in addition to the existing pitches at Meynells Gorse which has a 81 family waiting list for a pitch.

The council says there were 145 unauthorised Travellers camps in Leicester between 2006 and last year with more than half in the northern part of the city.