Gypsy families are given permission to stay at site - Essex

From the Brentwood Gazette

FIVE Traveller families will be able to continue to live in Mountnessing for the next 18 months – although they will have to wait to find out if they will be able to stay permanently.

Bernadette Reilly and her three young children are among the Gypsy families who have been living at the Roman Triangle site in Roman Road for the past nine years.

This week, Brentwood Borough Council gave them permission to stay for another 18 months – but the families will then need to reapply by which time the authority is likely to have finalised its local development plan on where Gypsies can live.

Ms Reilly, who is the chairman of the Brentwood Gypsy Support Group, said the council had received only three letters of objection to her application for permanent planning permission and she was upset by its decision.

"We are very disappointed," she said. "We were hoping for full planning permission but we are not going to appeal it, we'll just run with it and see where it goes when we reapply."

Ms Reilly's temporary permission expired in April and she had hoped that the council would choose to grant her wish for permanent status this time round.

The decision, taken at a Town Hall planning meeting on Wednesday, was reached after a number of councillors, including Tory Will Russell and Labour's Mike Le Surf, questioned why permanent permission had not been granted.

Councillor Keith Parker told the meeting that the council had to wait until it finalised its local development plan, following the launch of the Localism Act.

The new act means the council will have to assess the need for pitches, based on historic demand, provide a five-year supply of land and identify specific areas to enable delivery of sites for at least 15 years.

Targets for traveller pitches in each part of the country will be set by the local authority.

Despite this, the borough council's previous consultation on the location of 15 permanent traveller pitches remains active and the results will be be used to identify any future need.

Cllr Parker said: "This is not detrimental where we are talking about because Roman Triangle is probably one of the sites that is integrated into the area and which will be high on our list.

"The right decision is temporary permission.

"If we give permanent permission for this site, where it might be appropriate, it could set a precedent for the other sites in the borough which might be determined within our local plan."