Date set for decision over Staffordshire Travellers’ camp

From the Express and Star

Travellers who want to set up camp in a field bordering the site of the Staffordshire Hoard discovery will find out within the next couple of weeks if it can go ahead having had to resubmit their plans, it emerged today.

The Maughan family want to live on the site near Hammerwich, on the border of Burntwood and Brownhills, which they bought nearly three years ago. But a decision was put back after it was found they had not included all the land they owned on the application form.

Permission will now be considered by Lichfield District Council on June 11.

The plot was bought at auction by Terry Maughan. He and his family were previously based at the Fishpond Caravan Site in Featherstone but have been thrown off the site by Mr Maughan’s uncle, according to agents acting on the family’s behalf.

They have applied to change the use of the land, on the south side of Watling Street, from agricultural to a site for six mobile homes on four plots with sceptic tanks and utility rooms.

The application was made by Mr Maughan on behalf of his estranged wife Bernadette Maughan and her sister Anne-Marie Maughan.

Planning officer Sue Hodgkinson said the family had failed to include all their land which meant the application, due to have been heard in April, was put back for eight weeks.

But she said the new information did not affect the size of the living area where the caravans will be set up.

Before Christmas the authority had been forced to launch enforcement action when work was carried out to level the ground and re-seed it.

The application has upset residents and metal detecting enthusiast Terry Herbert, whose efforts led to the discovery of the Anglo-Saxon hoard of gold and silver in 2009, because of its proximity to the historic find.

Planning agent Alison Heine, representing the Maughans, said people had been alarmed unnecessarily, insisting this was “not a Dale Farm situation.”