Anger at plan for Gypsy home on campsite near Plymouth - Devon

From the Herald

RESIDENTS are outraged at a retrospective planning application for a private Gypsy mobile home on a Wembury camping site.

The applicants, Jim and Doris Manley, run the Pilgrims Rest Camping and Caravanning Club campsite in Wembury Road, near Knighton, but in November last year they made a retrospective planning application to use the land as a “private Gypsy/Traveller caravan site” for one two-bedroomed mobile home, one touring caravan and one amenity block. In their submission they reveal that “building, work or change of use” started in 1998.

South Hams District Council accepted comments on the proposal until January 20 this year and received dozens of replies from residents who live nearby, all opposing the application. However, public documents show that the planning officers wrote in an email in September last year which quoted Mr Kinsella, planning officer with South Hams council: “Having assessed the appellants statement and considered the scheme in accordance with the Local Plan Policies the Local Planning Authority are now of the opinion that planning permission may be forthcoming for a single Gypsy Traveller site.”

However, some residents have claimed that the applicants are using their historical links with Gypsy ancestry to get around planning rules.

One wrote in opposition, stating that the applicants have “lived a settled life in Wembury for many years and have owned and paid council tax for at least two properties on KnightonHill. In no way can they be classed as ‘itinerants’. Theirs is known locally to be a settled lifestyle. Any Gypsy ancestry is incidental and should not enable them to build a ‘semi’ permanent bungalow on a prime bit of land out of the reach of ordinary citizens.”

Another resident, noting the council’s obligation to provide accommodation sides for the use of Gypsies and Travellers, claims that the landowner has “made a very calculated and strategic move in order to obtain the council’s sympathetic approval of his retrospective planning application”.

They add that the site is situated within land designated as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty since 1960.

They also allude to the site being known as Pilgrims Rest Camping and Caravanning Club and that planning approval for such a camping site is “normally given subject to a restriction that no site is to be occupied continuously for longer than a stipulated number of days” and thus would not allow the building of properties for “permanent habitation”.

The Herald made attempts to contact the applicants but received no response.

The application for a Traveller site comes shortly after another which saw South Hams District Council approve a site on the border of Plympton, in Ridge Road, without informing local councillors.