Testun llawn:
I totally disagree with the proposals for so called traveller's community within the 2013 plan.
From the Councils own information:-
"There are four sites in total, currently run by local authorities in Warwickshire. There are also many private sites within the county. "
These sites are sufficient to serve the current and future needs of the official traveller community identified as being within the Warwickshire area.
Thus there is no need for further sites for true travellers and all current legal requirements are being met.
Identifying more sites is not therefore necessary but purely a political plan
True travellers, as their name implies, travel, and they do. The problems with the current population of false travellers is that they do not want to travel but create their own fixed communities on green belt land and do it by law breaking, intimidation and all methods necessary including force and blackmail.
The law breakers should have already lost the right to be in any plan, but now the council have become complicit in their crimes and seem to be far worst than the original perpetrators.
The new sites that are being planned are for the group of travellers evicted from the illegal site identified as 13 on the consultation map. The 2013 plan is a blue print to assist and reward these illegal land developers who hide under the true traveller's legal cloak.
To save face, the Council wish to provide a suitable travellers site that they already have identified and can give planning permission to. However the site must NOT be site 13, as that was the illegal site from which the travellers have been evicted. There may be others in a similar situation.
The architects of the plan know the local population do not want the law breaking travellers developing non bricks and mortar sites within their communities, therefore the 2013 Plan and consultation communications / meetings are using blatant, tactical wording in presentation literature to promote inter community battles over sites.
Nobody wants a traveller's encampment. They know it means trouble, and the council know people will fight to remain Traveller free.
Thus we have a situation where:
"Outside consultants have reported"
( meaning the council are not taking any responsibility for what has been reported). The council could have simply used the Traveller Accommodation Needs Assessments guidance notes, issued in 2007, to carry out the assessment themselves. However the Council would then not have been able to use the "not us, it's in the consultants report" (actual words spoken at a consultation) as an excuse.
"Within their report the consultants thank the Council for their support"
Of course the council supported the consultants, the consultants were told what the council wanted in the report and the consultants duly delivered - as all client requested consultant reports do.
"The need exists for permanent sites for the "old people" and "families with children"
What happened to these so-called Travellers buying houses to house themselves, and the associated costs, like the rest of society is obliged to do?
" 20 possible sites have been identified, we need 31 pitches, which shall we select?
This consultants report identifies that the need exists - now let's set community against community and have a particular attack on Barford which will have to defend itself. The arguments about which site to choose will therefore distract attention from the real discussion i.e. the need for any sites at all..
Very serious action will have to be taken in regard to the council's identification of sites and the legality of how the sites were identified and put into the public domain. The report said that some were council sites and others private. The councils own rules prohibit spending on new social housing and thus cannot finance new camp sites for renting tor travellers.
At the consultation it was said that many were picked out of the air by the planning office because they met some of the requirements on the planning department's list. Many private land owners had no idea the council were planning to use their land and totally object to the proposals.
The planning officer at the consultation freely admitted many of the sites have been eliminated and she implied that the ones required have already been chosen.
We have all now seen that the Council and its Planning Department have developed this plan to fight the tax paying public and to make their own lives simpler.
The consultations are thus a sham.
Opposition action must be taken to have the traveller element of the 2013 Plan withdrawn in total and not just to identify reasons for individual sites' unsuitability. To only identify unsuitable sites will just play into the political manipulators hands..
Planning manipulation should not be used to legalize the illegal acts. Travellers that persist in breaking the planning laws should end up in jail or subject to prohibitive fines. They should not be rewarded by a state funded holiday camp site. I am sure the Council would not hesitate to refuse any kind of planning permission if I wanted to carve up a piece of greenbelt for a clean, private house, but it is apparently acceptable to have an unsightly camp for people who do not have any input into paying for facilities, or any respect for the areas they choose to occupy.