Council awaits more test results at Meadow Lane - Bedfordshire

From Bedford On Sunday

YET another odour assessment must be carried out at a Gypsy and Traveller site before a council will even consider how much it will cost to open.

The Mayor of Bedford Borough, Dave Hodgson, told Bedfordshire on Sunday that the council and Anglian Water are currently carrying out further odour assessments at the Meadow Lane site in Bedford and the results are due back at the end of this month.

Only then will he consider what the costs of opening the site permanently will be and it could be that it never exists in anything but a temporary form.

He said: “Once we get the odour report we can move forward. We will see if we can find the money somewhere. Certainly it is not happening as quickly as I’d like.”

However the Mayor and the Borough Council have been criticised over the five year delay it has taken to get to this point since the site was first suggested and even if it opened today it would only provide enough pitches to meet the requirement until 2021.

Councillor Alison Foster who has herself put forward an alternative site at Fairhill in Clapham Road, Bedford, with other councillors, said: “If there was really a will to develop Meadow Lane it would have been done by now. There has been one excuse after another about why it can’t be delivered.”