Weedon Gypsy site given thumbs up by just one vote - Buckinghamshire

From the Bucks Herald

A Gypsy family has been given permission to set up a caravan site in Weedon, despite strong opposition in the village.

Aylesbury Vale District Council’s planning committee gave Harriet Lee permission to install a single caravan at Cooks Hill until November 2015 by six votes to five.

The decision will have to be reviewed at the end of that period.

The committee heard that Ms Lee and her family currently live in the Vale but she has long needed a permanent home and her current one, where she lives with a parent, is overcrowded.

Existing stables will be demolished to make way for the caravan at the site, which is away from the village centre and hidden behind hedges.

Opponents argued there are already enough Gypsy sites in the region to accommodate the family, that it will now be harder to block permanent planning permission and that keeping the family in limbo until 2015 is not fair.

Despite this, a majority of councillors backed the plan.

Councillor Jackie Phipps said: “It won’t be seen from the road or long distance.

“We couldn’t really find anything wrong with the site.”