Council quizzed over Pontypool Travellers’ site - Monmouthshire

From the Free Press

PEOPLE in Pontypool are to quiz Torfaen council over the £3.6m expansion plans for a Gypsy and Traveller site.

Members of Cwmynyscoy Action Group (CWMnag) had asked for the chance to address next week’s extraordinary meeting of the council to air their opposition to the plans.

CWMnag chairman Adrian Bold said: “There is constant confrontation between the two communities, Gypsy and settled, and it makes life uncomfortable and one would expect this to increase.

“We are trying to protest reasonably but we may have to be louder if the council doesn’t listen, but it’s hard when the local settled community is becoming a minority.”

CWMnag believes the council needs to look beyond the existing sites and expand into other wards.

The group has the support of ward councillor Neil Waite, who said: “I feel the people of Cwmynyscoy are being discriminated against just because other councillors don’t want a site in their wards.”

In July, Torfaen councillors asked for more details about the £3.6m plan to expand the gipsy site, Shepherds Hill, onto an unused football pitch at the Race, to address issues of overcrowding. The councilowned site has more than 100 residents living on 26 permanent residential pitches for caravans and mobile homes and one transit pitch.

The proposal on the neighbouring Race football field could provide 32 pitches, but the council will look at situating 20 caravan pitches there, which would accommodate around 80 residents.

Another ten pitches could be built on the privately-owned Rose Cottage site.

Privately-owned Mountain View, also in the Race, currently caters for 20 pitches.

The extraordinary meeting of Torfaen council will be held at the Civic Centre in Pontypool on November 20 at 5pm.

A Shepherds Hill tenant who posted on our website said: “The site expansion is not to provide more pitches for more travellers, but simply to provide the space for the people who are already living at Shepherds Hill, who are overcrowded and are living in breach of health and safety laws. Please give your support to the site expansion plan, after all the travellers of Shepherds Hill do not want to move but if CWMnag has its way and another area has to be found for a newsite, it could end up on your doorstep.”