Essington Gypsy site proposal is set to be refused

From the Express and Star

Plans for a 15-pitch Gypsy site look set to be thrown out by a council at a meeting next week.

The application, which also includes a day room and six utility blocks on Bursnips Road in Essington, had sparked fury among parish councillors who unanimously voted against it last year.

South Staffordshire Council planning officers have recommended the council’s regulatory committee refuses the plans on the basis it is an ‘inappropriate development for green belt land’.

The plans were submitted by a Mr Clee who had lived on the site with his family since 1987. Documents presented to the authority said the extension would be used to accommodate the Clee family, three generations of which live together on the land.

The report to the council reads: “The proposed development represents inappropriate development in the green belt.

“Policy GB1 of the adopted Core Strategy and the National Policy for Traveller Sites demand that very special circumstances are advanced to justify development which is inappropriate by definition.

The council has considered the case for ‘very special circumstances’ advanced by the applicant, i.e unmet need/lack of five-year supply, existing consent, however, in the council’s view, these considerations do not outweigh the identified harm in this case.”

June Smallman, who was one of the parish councillors for Essington who rejected the plans, had claimed that the village was becoming ‘the tipping ground for Gypsy sites in South Staffordshire’.

The parish council’s chairman and district councillor David Clifft said: “I’m obviously concerned about the number of Gypsy and travellers’ sites in Essington as there are four already.

“I think there are an adequate number of sites and pitches and at the moment that doesn’t put pressure on the facilities and infrastructure of our village.”

Last month South Staffordshire Council rubber stamped plans for a crematorium to be built in the village.

A 650-signature petition was handed to the authority in addition to 250 direct complaints made to the district council. South Staffordshire Council claimed the development could generate £100,000 a year.