Crowd cheers as gypsy site proposals refused - Bedfordshire

From Bedfordshire On Sunday

Hundreds of residents attended a meeting last Monday to hear if councillors would refuse permission for three more Gypsy and Traveller sites in the borough.

Members of settled residential communities in Roxton, Stevington and Bletsoe came to the meeting of Bedford Borough Council’s planning committee on Monday where all three applications were rejected.

Councillors were unsympathetic to claims from the applicant’s husband for the site in Bedford Road, Roxton that his family have been living on the roadside since 2004 when they were evicted from another site and that their ‘need for accommodation is immediate’ as it would improve their quality of life, after he admitted that they would not in fact be living on site.

Mr Barker, speaking on behalf of the applicants Mr and Mrs Brown, appealed to the committee to grant temporary permission at the least even if they felt they couldn’t approve it permanently.

He said: “There is a need for 12 Gypsy and Traveller pitches in Bedford Borough, granting this application would clear four of those.” The councillor for Wyboston ward, Tom Wootton, said: “A smaller application was already refused before, and now they have come back with something much larger.

This would be a very large site in a small rural village.” Both the application for three pitches in Stevington and four pitches in Bletsoe were unanimously refused by members of the committee.

Plans for the site at Stevington were also thrown out as members supported the view from the parish council that the location suggested was unsuitable as it was not near any urban town centres or public transport networks and was contrary to the council’s own planning policy for Gypsy and Traveller sites.

Residents of Bletsoe gave rapturous applause after councillors also unanimously refused to extend temporary permission for the site at Waiting for the Sun in Rushden Road which expires at the end of this month.

Speaking at the meeting as the councillor for Harrold Ward, Alison Field Foster, said: “At the time the inspector said that this should not set a precedent for further applications and or for permanent permission to be given. It was purely approved as there was a lack of available sites in the borough at that time.

“They came on the site knowing it was temporary.”