Gypsy camps right next door to new homes - Somerset

From the Weston Mercury

GYPSIES and Travellers could soon be pitching up to live alongside new home buyers on the outskirts of Weston.

North Somerset Council is looking to ‘persuade’ developers to allocate land within the new Weston Villages’ developments for specialised sites so the travellers can ‘live side-by-side’ with the local population.

The authority has had to turn to more urban areas to create the new, modern facilities, after more rural land it was looking at was rated as high flood-risk by the Environment Agency.

The council says it is under growing pressure to find the sites due to the growing and ageing population of travellers already living in the district, which means the children now need homes.

So, it has turned to new developments planned between Winterstoke Road and Wolvershill Road, to include the former airfield near Locking, Locking Parklands at the former RAF camp and the Mead Realisations land south of Somerset Avenue, to try and solve the problem.

One housing association has already come forward to say it would like to run the pitches, which are likely to go on land adjacent to the new housing developments.

North Somerset Council deputy leader Elfan Ap Rees said: “Ideally we would like to find two to three sites, housing maybe 10 pitches.

“People can live side-by-side with the Travellers as Willowmead in Moor Lane, Weston, has shown.

“A lot of the Travellers are perfectly nice, but just have a different lifestyle.

“Although we are looking for the sites to be reasonably integrated into the community, we will look at landscaping them to make them more private.

“But it does make sense to have them within these developments, as the travellers can have access to shops, schools and doctors.”

Councillor Ap Rees says at the moment developers are ‘not keen’ on the ideas, but some of the land within the development areas are already owned by North Somerset Council.

He says the local authority does not want to resort to compulsory purchasing, but wants to ‘persuade’ developers the sites could be well managed, as Willowmead already is.

He added: “They would be part of the local community, but this doesn’t mean houses would be devalued.

“The people who would live there are already local residents and would be very different to the type of Travellers who invade the area for a short period of time.

“We’d like to do this sensitively and overcome any prejudices people may have.”

In North Somerset there are nearly 50 permanent Traveller pitches across multiple sites already.

These include Willowmead and the privately-owned Moorland Park in Hewish.

Proposals for the new sites will be discussed by the council’s strategic planning, highways and economic development scrutiny panel before any decisions are made by the executive of senior councillors.