'Offensive' emails over Travellers' site plan in Datchet - Berkshire

From the Ascot Windsor and Eton Express

Angry opponents of plans for a new Travellers' site in Datchet may have shot themselves in the foot by sending 'offensive' emails to the Royal Borough.

At a public question and answer session held in Datchet Village Hall on Monday the borough's head of planning Simon Hurrell revealed that 89 letters and emails of objection to the plan had been received. Only 18 have been in favour.

But he said: "Unfortunately half of these replies were offensive, which puts the Royal Borough in a difficult position.

"If we receive material that could give rise to unlawful harassment or victimisation we have to take that fact into account.

"The emails I regard as offensive are based on ignorance."

Mr Hurrell was talking at a meeting of Datchet Parish Council, which had invited him to take part in the public Q and A session.

Villagers who packed the hall seemed overwhelmingly opposed to the plan to establish a second Travellers' site in Datchet by putting up to 10 mobile homes for Travellers on a field behind homes in Horton Road. But the session was polite and well-ordered. 'Offensive' opponents of the plan had clearly stayed away.

The site is greenbelt and on the flood plain which would normally render it unusable for homes, except in 'exceptional grounds'.

But Mr Hurrell said that the fact there were an estimated 82 Traveller families in the Royal Borough needing homes could count as 'exceptional grounds', as more than three quarters of them are based in the area of Datchet, Wraysbury and Horton.

But he emphasised that the idea for the new Travellers' site was still only in the consultation stage. Members of the Royal Borough's ruling cabinet will decide on January 24 whether to take it one stage further by putting in a formal planning application.

Meanwhile a petition against the plan which will be presented to councillors has been signed already by 600 people in the village.