Council ready to run its first Gypsy encampment - Devon

From Mid-Devon Gazette

GYPSY and traveller site is to be set up by the district council in Mid Devon.

The area will provide the first local authority-run pitches in the district.

And the Gazette understands that a specific site is being considered by the council.

But the authority is refusing to say where it is or how much the project might cost.

The press and public were prevented from attending part of a council meeting last week when the controversial issue was debated.

But the move has been welcomed by the Gyspy community.

Councillor Richard Chesterton, Mid Devon's portfolio holder for planning and economic regeneration, said: "We are not looking to create a brand new gypsy site here. We are looking to acquire something that is already a Gypsy site and turn it into a one managed by the council.

"But at this stage it is too early to say where this site would be."

As part of the Housing Act 2004, local authorities are required to ensure that adequate sites are available for Gypsies and Travellers in much the same way as affordable housing has to be provided for the local community.

An assessment carried out in 2006 by the University of Plymouth to determine the level of accommodation required by the Gypsy and travelling community found that Mid Devon needed to provide 14 permanent and seven transit pitches between 2006 and 2011.

Since this assessment, the district council, working with the local Gypsy community, has provided 34 new pitches.

Most were created through the expansion of existing private sites, although the council also granted five new private sites with a total of 10 pitches. An increase in the number of unauthorised encampments in the district over the last three years has led to the granting of several temporary planning consents on appeal after the refusal of applications.

At present, there are three small sites in Mid Devon which have three-year temporary permissions, and one appeal pending.

An inspector assessing all three cases concluded that the sites were unsustainable in planning terms due to their remote locations.

A Mid Devon council cabinet report stated that: "If a site were to be acquired by the council it would help to reduce the number of unauthorised encampments and also the number of temporary permissions granted in inappropriate locations."

At a meeting of the cabinet on Thursday councillors voted in favour of a proposal to acquire a suitable site.

The money to pay for it will come from council funds as Government grants are no longer available. The site should generate some income but will be costly to run.

Plans to create a council-run site in 2010 at an existing private site at Sandpit, off the A38 near Culmstock, with a market value of £450,000, had to be abandoned after an application for funding from the government was rejected.

Maggie Smith-Bendell, of the Somerset Gypsy Liaison Group, said: "A public site would be brilliant for Mid Devon.

"At the moment we only have one official site at Sowton in Exeter. There are pitches needed all over Devon.

"The problem is that families outgrow sites. You have people who cannot afford to buy a piece of land and can never afford cannot get on the ladder in just the same way as you have in the local community.

"I don't think that there is a perfect piece of land in the whole of England that won't generate negative feeling from the local community. But once people get to know the people living at the sites they turn out not to be the people that they expected."

Councillor Chesterton said: "There isn't a finite amount of money yet, as it is all subject to negotiation. We have to be realistic as the budget is limited."