Travellers’ site for Hermitage? - Berkshire

From Newbury Today

PROPOSALS for a Travellers’ site in Hermitage have been put before planners.

They include provision for caravans, mobile homes and ‘day rooms’ on land to the north west of Furze Hill.

The agents for the applicants claims that the “Local Plan fails to identify suitable locations for Gypsy-Traveller sites in the district” and therefore Government guidelines which presume in their favour must come into play.

Specifically, the application is for five pitches to accommodate a total of five mobile homes plus five touring caravans and five day rooms.

The agents for the five families, WS Planning and Architecture, provide a pen portrait of one of their clients, named Ruby Doe. The formal application submitted to planners states: “As a young woman she lived with her parents. They passed away many years ago and since then she has not stayed on any site for more than a few months.

“She sells lucky heather for a living.”

All five families travel as their way of life, “undertaking landscaping works and…meeting up with friends and relatives at horse fairs throughout the country.”

The site is within the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) and is outside any defined settlement boundary but the agents add: “It is considered that the proposed use of this land for private Gypsy site is suitable and there would be no justification to withhold permission.

“Government guidance recognises that sites in rural or semi-rural areas may be acceptable…the families will be homeless with nowhere to live if this permission is not granted. The families need to be settled so they can access health services.”

In conclusion the application claims: “There is both a backlog of unmet need and a newly arising need. There is no provision for new sites in the Development Plan and no local policy to direct provision.”

Back in March, 2011, West Berkshire Council announced that the provision of pitches would be considered in its Site Allocations and Delivery Development Plan Document which would be published at an unspecified date in the future.

Nearly three years later, the council’s website currently states: “We are commencing work on the…document which will contain detailed land use proposals.”