Green belt Leeds caravan site plan is rejected

A Traveller’s bid to keep a mobile home on green belt land has been refused.

Following a site visit by members of Leeds City Council’s Plans Panel East, it was decided that the home could not remain on an area of hard standing that he owned behind Gildersome Lane, in Gildersome.

The proposals, recommended for refusal by planning officers, aimed to temporarily retain a two-bedroom mobile home parked up beside the landowner’s stables and utility room.

James Garbutt, of Walker Morris solicitors, said the “unmet need” for alternative Traveller sites in the city and violence at his old home meant that his client had special circumstances to warrant living there.

But council planners stated that the building would have a “harmful impact” on the openness of the land.

Coun Robert Finnigan (Morley Borough Independents, Morley North) sits on the committee and questioned the traveller’s claim of violent threats.

She said: “Your client claims that he had to flee from Cottingley Springs.

“Can you explain why the manager of Cottingley Springs doesn’t recognise this?”

In response, Mr Garbutt maintained that the applicant was a resident at Cottingley Springs for 40 years before he was subjected to threats and violence, for which there was no evidence, causing him to leave.

He said: “If he had somewhere else to go than live on the site he would do, but he is sited there now and is happy to move when there’s somewhere to move to.”

Citing a number of sites in the ward where travellers have stayed or do stay, Coun Finnigan added: “Can you really say that there is an unmet need in this area?”

The panel unanimously voted to refuse the application.