Call to connect more Travellers' sites to mains sewers backed by councillors - Cambridgeshire

From Cambridge News

More Travellers’ sites should be connected to mains sewers, councillors have said.

Members of South Cambridgeshire District Council voted in favour of a motion calling for gypsy pitches to be treated in the same way as houses when it comes to waste water disposal.

Many Traveller properties are currently treated as if they were holiday caravan sites, including those in Fen Road in Cambridge.

The Welsh government is currently consulting on changes to remedy this and councillors backed the motion from Milton’s Cllr Hazel Smith calling for the reforms to apply in England too.

Cllr Smith said this would help to solve sewerage problems in Fen Road.

She said: “Any caravan occupied as a permanent residence with planning permission should be treated in the same way as bungalows and this review gives us the chance to make that happen.”

Councillors backed the motion by 44 votes to one.

Fowlmere’s Cllr Deborah Roberts said the motion was unfair because many houses in the district are not on mains sewers.

Cllr Roberts said: “If you’re going to have equality, it’s got to be equality for everybody.

“If Travellers at Smithy Fen or Water Lane are entitled to have a good connection, so are all the other people in south Cambridgeshire district who are still on very archaic systems, who, with the situation we have had over the last few years, are finding if difficult to cope.”