WEYMOUTH: Fierce opposition to choosing sites for Gypsies and Travellers - Dorset

From View Online

A FIERCE wall of opposition has been met during county consultations for a plan to allocate sites in Dorset for Gypsies, Travellers and travelling Showpeople.

More than 16,000 responses were received according to a final report on the issues and options consultation by Peter Brett Associates of Bristol.

It revealed that nearly 75 per cent of respondents were against the principle of even identifying and allocating such sites.

A majority believed that Dorset councils should identify targets from a review of local evidence and that permanent residential sites should generally be small and any larger ones should not contain more than 15 pitches.

The most popular option was that, if there were a surplus of sites, councils should prioritise sites within those areas where travelling communities currently live and travel through with an emphasis on extending or putting more pitches on existing sites or for granting permission for sites which currently exist but do so without permission.

The report recommends Weymouth and Portland, West Dorset and other councils to tell local targets if they are to be identified in the Development Plan Document which should be developed taking consultation comments into account.

There should be further review work into shortlisted sites, those worthy of further investigation and previously rejected sites, recommends the report, while new sites and areas of search put forward during consultation should also be investigated and assessed to see if they can be identified as alternative or additional sites.

A revised timetable should also be produced and published, says the report, to identify the future progress of the Document.

The report said that one individual claimed it was rare in Weymouth and Portland between 1989-2009 even during peak summer periods for groups of five or six caravans or at the most ten to visit the borough, so for the document to suggest 25 pitches were needed was wrong.

Equally the report said that another comment claimed that the document had only identified “a mere fraction” of the sites supposedly required in West Dorset “and as such has failed its own objective”.

Overall comments also strongly expressed a view that there was no need to provide more sites.

More than 470 people said they were against making a site available next to the tip at Lodmoor in Weymouth with more than 130 objecting to part of the Mount Pleasant park and ride site being used.