Gypsy site has WWI grenades and horse carcasses under it say campaigners - Nottinghammshire

From the Retford Times

Planners are being urged to halt consideration of proposals for a Romani Gypsy site in Haughton after claims anthrax-riddled horse carcasses and munitions were dumped there.

A Walesby resident says at the closure of a temporary military post off Retford Road, World War I soldiers were told to bury diseased horse carcasses in three pits spaced across the site.

Grenades and ammunition were also buried in separate pits, the man said, adding that the location of these burials includes the area of the site application.

The written and oral evidence of the staging post, and the burial of infected horse carcasses and live munitions, comes from the late grandfather of resident, Tom Wood, who has lived in and around the area for almost 70 years.

Mr Wood said: “I know the land referred to in the planning application in Walesby and the immediate surrounding area is the area described by my grandfather.

“This area is contaminated and very dangerous as a result of horse carcasses infected with anthrax being buried there and live munitions being present in the ground.”

Mr Wood said he spent a great deal of time as a boy with his grandfather searching for war mementos on the land immediately surrounding the site of the application but was told never to venture on ‘dangerous areas’.

He says he distinctly remembers the exact areas his grandfather refused to let him walk or dig and this includes the two paddocks outlined in the planning application for a Romani Gypsy site.

Mr Wood said: “Each and every time we walked in these fields, grandfather would tell me that I must not go searching in the land over to the left, which was the land towards the Retford Road and which includes the land contained within the planning application, and he would always say I had to stay to the right”

Alan Smith, chair of campaign group Haughton, Walesby and Bothamsall Residents Against Inappropriate Development, which strongly opposes the planning application, said: “This information is extremely serious and worrying.

“It would be a careless and high-risk strategy for Bassetlaw District Council to approve the continuation of examination of this application until the landowner has proven beyond doubt that any planned excavations, would not have devastating and dangerous consequences.

“Anthrax spores are known to survive for decades and decades. This is crucial information, but it is just one of a whole host of reasons why this site is totally inappropriate for any development.”

The application is for a permanent site for three generations of the same Romani gypsy family.

The proposal is for six log cabin-style mobile homes, six touring caravans and six log cabin-style dayrooms with parking for 12 vehicles in total, along with a children's play area and new access.

The applicant's planning statement pointed out that the family would be able to access schools and healthcare from a 'settled and secure' base and they would not have to 'suffer the hardship that a nomadic way of life would entail'.

It added that the applicant and his family would want to develop the site at their own expense.

Local residents are expected to make a full case to Bassetlaw Council, highlighting what they call a number of shortcomings about the proposed application site ranging from concerns over highways safety, to the impact on the nationally important, historic setting, of the Haughton Duck Decoy.