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Sites for Gypsies & Travellers
Preferred options for consultation
The District Council's preferred option is set out in PO1 Meeting the requirement for Permanent pitches. The intention is to provide 31 pitches on permanent sites.
The preferred option selects
GT04 Harbury Lane/Fosse Way up to 10 pitches
GT12 Westham Lane, Barford up to 8 pitches
GT15 East of Europa Way up to 5 pitches
GT19 Birmingham Road, Budbrooke up to 5 pitches
GTalt01 Brookside Willows Banbury Road up to 10 pitches
Total 38 pitches
Conclusion of my response

To provide 31 pitches I consider the best arrangement to be

1. GT04 Harbury Lane land north of the Football club (see section 4) 6 pitches
2. GT12 Land south of Westham Lane, Barford (see section 4) 0 pitches
GT12 land north of Westham Lane within new housing, as single pitches 3 pitches
3. GT19 Birmingham Road, Budbrooke (see section 4) 3 pitches
4. GTalt01 Brookside Willows, Banbury Road (see section 4) 6 pitches
5. GT08 Land north of Depot near Cubbington Heath Farm (see section 5) 7 pitches
6. Riverside House affordable homes, in single pitches (see section 2) 3 pitches
7. Soans Sydenham affordable homes , in single pitches (see section 2) 3 pitches

TOTAL 31 pitches
1. Criteria for selection of sites.
The selection of sites for permanent pitches should be in line with the DCLG Designing Gypsy and Traveller Sites , Good Practice Guide dated May 2008 and which is still current.
Chapter 3 examines Location of sites and recommends, in paras 3.1 & 3.2

3.1 Selecting the right location for a site is a key element in supporting good community relations and maximising its success. As with any other form of housing, poorly located sites, with no easy access to major roads or public transport services, will have a detrimental effect on the ability of residents to:
* Seek or retain employment
* Attend school, further education or training
* Obtain access to health services and shopping facilities.
3.2 Easy access to local services, and to social contact with other residents in the community, should help deal with the myths and stereotypes which can cause community tension and instead encourage a greater sense of community with shared interests.

The Guide also lists as important
* a safe environment for the residents
* Promotion of integrated co-existence between the site and local community
* Easy access to General Practitioner and other health services
* Near to a bus route, shops and schools
* Ground conditions and levels of land
* Not in areas of flood risk.
.
The Guide also strongly states
3. 7 Where possible, sites should be developed near to housing for the settled community as part of mainstream residential developments. As one way of helping to address shortages of site provision local authorities and registered social landlords can consider the feasibility and scope for providing a site for Gypsies and Travellers within their negotiations to provide affordable housing as part of significant new build developments. Even where smaller scale developments are planned they could consider including a small scale site of three to four pitches which are known to work well for single extended families.

Evidence provided to Select Committee on the importance of site location:
"What is working [in Ireland] are small sites. And they are not placed under flyovers or pylons, or beside sewers, canals or tips; they are placed on proper positioned land, bang within the middle of a settled community, and they are working."204]

None of the preferred option sites meet the criteria of 3.7. This is understandable since it is clear that the majority of the public do not want the travelling community anywhere and the District Council does not really want to provide them. This is due to the reputation that the travellers have for abusing other people's property, leaving dirt and damage behind and assumed increased minor crime. Sometimes those fears are real.

As a result, the travelling community as a whole prefer to live as a separate community, in large groups away from urban locations, so sustaining the mistrust between them and the settled community. As well as this, the larger the group, the bigger the perceived threat. It would seem advisable therefore, to dilute any possible effect to the minimum by keeping the number of pitches on a site as low as possible with a range of sites with a different number of pitches to provide sufficient flexibility to meet the needs of the tenants.
2. Small groups of single sites
However, paragraph 3.7 does indicate that some benefit could be gained if, in new affordable housing schemes, a housing association included a small number of single plot sites.

So it is suggested that you consider, on the 2 affordable housing sites recently included in the publication draft of the local plan, Orbit/Deeley at Sydenham and Riverside House redevelopment sites, that, within each of those developments, 3 separate single plots are slipped in between the normal affordable housing. Each plot would have a normal access to the street, a small bungalow amenity building and space for caravans and vehicle parking designed to fit in with the normal housing. They could look to be a natural part of the housing development, similar to a normal house where the owner parks their caravan in their garden next to a bungalow. As a permanent site, it could be offered to those who are not tied to a large group, who might choose to value getting involved in a wider community and could get close to, but not next door to other members of their family group in much the same way that the settled community does. For the children of those families it would give them a wider educational opportunity to reach their potential, rather than being obliged to be constrained to traditional traveller's ways. For the potential wage earner it would give a wider choice of employment opportunities. For the settled community neighbours, the chances of problems are reduced by the dissipation of the number of sites.

The Guidance gives an example in Annex 3b, Small Scale site in urban locations, with a plot about 10m by 20m (200m2) as compared with the 500m2 per pitch suggested for a set of pitches with internal roads. Services and drainage would cost less, being part of a larger development, so this arrangement is probably the least expensive cost per pitch to provide.
3. The operational management method for Gypsies & Travellers Permanent sites.
The District Council's proposed operating model is ownership and operation by an individual traveller landlord. This is unlikely to be a trouble free arrangement and cannot be relied on to permanently meet the established need, nor maintain a well-run site. Since providing a pitch is viewed as providing a supported housing facility, it should be operated by an independent body that can offer pitches fairly to gypsy traveller applicants, with fair rents and resources to maintain the facility and set the way that non-compliance with fair rules can terminate the tenure. This could be either the District Council or a housing association that specialises in this area of work. The District Council shows no appetite to run such sites, so interest should be invited from interested housing associations to purchase the site, finance, build, maintain and manage it. This model could also include implementation of ways of encouraging a greater sense of community with shared interests of the settled and travelling residents.
4. Considering the 5 preferred options.
GT04 Harbury Lane/Fosse Way
The preferred option document describes this site as currently the home ground of the Leamington Football club. The plan , which is not to the scale of 1:10,000 stated in page 37 shows a brown line around the site in which the Football Club and car park is in the south corner. The whole site is 350m by 430m with a small area in the east corner excluded. The total area is 150,300m2 or thereabouts. 10 pitches are suggested which using the 500m2 per pitch would require only 5,000m2.
Major Gas Pipelines run under the site and construction over the pipeline zones will not be permitted by the Health & Safety Executive. There is a small triangular area north of the football club that appears to be outside the zones between the two pipelines, so any location in this area needs to be carefully worked out with National Grid. However, excavations for drainage that would need to pass over the exclusion zones is unlikely to be permissible. Surface water drainage to this area is by ditches above ground and in persistent wet weather water flows off the fields to the south of Harbury Lane towards the car park and pitch of the Football Club. This part of the site is not therefore suitable for a permanent G & T site.
The site is remote to schools, health services, hospitals, shops & community facilities. It is said that some travellers do not find this a problem.
If kept to a maximum of 6 pitches, a 3,000m2 plot, avoiding the Gas pipeline zones, could be located north of the existing football Club with an access road to the site immediately to the west of the club car park. The site itself could be screened from view along Harbury Lane with suitable tree & shrub planting all around it. This location is less likely to be affected by flooding than the football club area.
I would therefore support the use of this site north of the existing Football Club premises with a separate access to Harbury Lane, surrounded by shelter belt tree planting for a maximum of 6 pitches under the direction of a specialist housing association. This would not require relocation of the football club to another location, safeguarding that site for housing required to meet the Local Plan targets. If the football club wanted to move for other reasons then it could be relocated to a suitable site in the green belt as a compatible use of greenbelt.
GT12 Westham Lane, Barford
This site is South of Westham Lane, not north as described in the preferred options document, close to the River Avon on the west, with the Barford by-pass on the east. The plan, which is not to the scale of 1:10,000 stated in page 39 shows a brown line around the site to the edge of the river and has an approximate area of 7,500m2 excluding the shrub belt on the bank of the river.
8 pitches on this site are too many and would be so close to the by-pass to be impossible to hide with planting. This is not good for the area or for the tenants.
The risk of pollution to the river from activities of the tenants as well as a non-mains drainage solution from this development that would be needed, is too high.
The by-pass is a fast road and access on & off the site would have serious safety concerns.
This concept would quickly deteriorate into a problem. The maximum number of pitches that this site could sustain is 3, to release space for setting the site back sufficiently to get adequate screening and small enough to stop it getting out of hand.
Alternatively, in the village housing options document, 3 housing sites have been identified between the bypass and the Wellesbourne Road. Site 2 is for 60 dwellings and site 3 is for 15 dwellings. 40% of these will presumably be affordable homes and it may therefore be an idea to put these 3 sites as single sites, within probably the larger housing site, in a similar manner to that set out in section 2 above.
GT15 East of Europa Way
This is not suitable for a permanent Gypsy & Traveller site because
* It was built as a permanent woodland as part of the Europa Way construction and forms a valuable screen to the east side of the road and is a positive contribution to the Tachbrook Valley landscape as this photo shows which was taken from the bottom right hand corner of the plan on page 41 towards Europa Way. The proposed site is to the right of the single oak tree (left hand side mid distance) at the point where the trees on the horizon are higher than the tree belt to the left. The Tach Brook is at the bottom of the slope on the right, where the trees along the side of the brook show how the brook relates to the wood and fields.
* The site within the brown lines on plan on page 41 stretches from Europa way down to the Tachbrook. The level at Europa Way is about 65m AOD and the level at the top of the bank to the brook is below 55m. This 10m fall occurs over a distance of between 40 and 150m, so the land has considerable falls across it that would make the site difficult for manoeuvring large vehicles and trailers. Note that the plan on page 41 is not to 1:10,000 but at about 1:2,500.

* The access onto Europa Way, which is a fast road when it is not congested, has serious safety concerns for a site containing large vehicles and trailers as well as young children. Roadside vegetation, trees and shrubs, would need to be removed to get adequate visibility splays.
* To construct the permanent site, large numbers of the trees would have to be cleared. This is one piece of young woodland that is playing a valuable part in carbon dioxide absorption, taking out 4 tonnes of CO2 per annum for every 100m2, which for the area of woodland affected means about a total of 450 tonnes per annum. Loss of such woodland would be contrary to the NPPF definition of sustainable development.
* Although the woodland is young it is dense and gives valuable habitat to wildlife. Human intervention from a permanent site would remove those habitats and the deer, badgers and other mammals would not survive in this location.
* The site would need non-mains foul drains so there is a risk of pollution of the waters in the brook that flows swiftly through to New Waters and then into the Avon, both from drainage spillage and debris from the tenants.
* Considering how this site could be laid out for 5 pitches, because it is a relatively narrow piece of woodland, after accounting for the new road access required and the falls across the site, it is probable that 5 pitches could not be satisfactorily sited and would have to be linear, parallel with the road. On a cost per pitch costing it is probably one of the most expensive locations in its capital cost of provision.
* Due to the heavy traffic on Europa Way and the proximity of living spaces to that road it is unlikely that it meets the noise standards required for a permanent site.
* As a site this is remote to any other community and is not as recommended by the DCLG guidelines. All facilities (shops, schools, health etc.) are pretty much only accessible by car.
This site should not have been included as a viable option and should be removed from the list.
GT19 Birmingham Road, Budbrooke
This site is on the A41 to Solihull between this road and the canal. The plan, which is not to the scale of 1:10000 stated in page 43 shows a brown line around the site, demonstrating its restricted nature. It would appear to be about 40m by 40m or 1600m2 so if a plot size is 500m2, then it will only take 3 pitches at most.
The site is an untidy corner but it is close to an urban community. Access could be obtained off the lane that goes south to Ugly Bridge and if the site is fenced and planted it could be reasonably self-contained and screened from the Birmingham Road. However, it would be more liable to succeed if it was limited to 3 pitches.
GTalt01 Brookside Willows, Banbury Road
This site, if it is to be used, needs very careful consideration. It is on the Banbury Road and Castle Park, a Grade 1 historic park, is on the opposite side of the road. It is part of a major visually powerful route into Warwick and forms a major route from the M40 and traffic approaching from the south to visit the area and Castle. It is a major tourist as well historic heritage.
It was granted permission as a holiday caravan site so if used for Gypsy & Travellers, unless this element is successfully run and does not deter visitors, then it will never become that. The District Council needs to decide which group of visitors they wish to attract.
It may be possible to do both. If the number of pitches is constrained to about 6 and a part of the site to the east is selected for the purpose with its own independent access from the Banbury Road and the site is run to a high standard, then it could still be viable as a tourist caravan park.
Providing that the size of the permanent site is limited to 6 pitches taking 100m by 40m of the south east corner of the site with fencing and strong shrub planting around it, it would be more or less be invisible to visitors and if run successfully would not prevent the rest of the site being used for normal caravan purposes. It would also be essential to protect the Tach Brook and its embankments from pollutants, human usage and detritus so that can be a successful wildlife corridor that feeds clean water into New Waters and the River Avon.
5. Alternative Sites

GT02 Land abutting the Fosse Way close to the A425
This area of land is a prominent and valuable piece of landscape on the Fosse Way and a caravan site for anyone, travellers or tourist caravans, would be a extremely negative in this location. So this site should not be used.
However on the east side of the Fosse way, there is The Fosse Exhibition complex and North Fosse Farm. It would be possible to provide a small permanent site in this location using existing services and access and to screen the site with substantial planting.
But it is not suggested that this should considered in this consultation.
GT05 Land at Tachbrook Hill Farm
This land should not be considered for a permanent site because
* It is on the Banbury Road and this is a major route from the M40 to Warwick and Warwick Castle and as such it is part of a major tourist attraction, enhancing the economy of the district. A G & T site here would be clearly seen by visitors coming into the area and be negative to the visitor experience.
* The barn north of the farm buildings at Tachbrook Hill Farm is Listed Grade II. The site suggested is land immediately to the north of the barn and so is part of the context of the listed building. Any development on this site would not be appropriate and is contra to the NPPF.
* The Banbury Road is a fast road. It connects to junction 13 of the M40 only 500m away from Tachbrook Hill Farm and drivers are normally accelerating up to motorway speeds in anticipation of the motorway or when coming off the motorway have not readjusted to non-motorway speeds. Any new junction for slow moving traffic would be a major safety hazard.
* The Banbury Road and its junction with Mallory Road are known accident black spots including a history of fatalities. The frontage to Banbury Road is lined with Oak trees and any sight lines required for a new access would require removal of a considerable number of them. This is not acceptable and it would make the site even more open to the visitor transport route.
* The WCC Landscape Sensitivity, Ecology & Geological Report for the New Local Plan assessed the landscape sensitivity as High. This indicates that development for any purpose should not be permitted.
* It is within 400m of the M40 on which vehicles can be seen travelling along the motorway, demonstrating a straight noise line to the site. It is too close to the motorway and the traffic noise on this site, particularly at night, or the wrong cloud base level, is high.
GT06 Land at Park Farm
This land should not be considered for a permanent site because
* It is on the Banbury Road and this is a major route from the M40 to Warwick and Warwick Castle and as such it is part of a major tourist attraction, enhancing the economy of the district. The land shown on the plan on page 53 is clearly visible to traffic using Banbury Road so substantial visual screening would be required.
* It is close to Castle Park which is a grade 1 Listed Park and is part of the parkland layout for Warwick Castle. Visually, the Castle Park, The Asps farm and Park Farm are all part of the rural context for the Castle and the entrance to Warwick from the south.
* Using part of Park Farm may affect the viability of the whole farm and that would be an unacceptable outcome of taking part of it as a G & T permanent site.
* It is remote from any community and does not have easy access to local services and to social contact with other residents in the community. It is also remote to schools, health and GP services.

GT08 Depot west side of Cubbington Heath Farm.
This site is on the northwest side of the A445, Leicester Lane, from Cubbington to Stoneleigh. The plan, which is not to the scale of 1:10,000 stated in page 55, shows a brown line around the site which is currently a road salt store used by the County council on lease from the current owners. It is presumed that this use would need to remain in the future.

The whole site is rectangular about 200m by 100m and has a good access to the south of the site from the road. The salt store occupies the southern 2/3rds of the site.

The northern end is grassed and is hedged to the road, the northern and western boundaries. It is not used in the salt operations as can be seen in the aerial photo. This part of the site is about 60 by 100 or about 6000m2 so at 500m2 per pitch could accommodate 12 pitches. However, to ensure retention of a substantial part of the green area, only 7 pitches should be provided on this site that would only require 3,500m2 of the available area. In the remaining area additional tree planting should be set out to compensate for any loss of green space that might occur.

Access to the site could be via the existing depot access or could have its own direct access to Leicester Lane but this would require removal of the hedgerow to the road to get adequate site lines. Since the salt store is only used in cold weather it is possible that this limited usage could be managed with the access to the G & T site from the existing access.


The site is close to the farm complex but is over 600m from the crossroads at the north of Cubbington. So it is a convenient distance to the urban area for local services, schools health and for social contact with other residents in the community as advised in the DCLG guidance. It is not visible from the road so would provide privacy to the tenants and although it is in the Green Belt would only have negligible impact on the area, not reducing the distances between the urban areas so separated.

WDC Local Plan Gypsies & Travellers Preferred Options Consultation


The JPC accepts that allocations must be made for the G&T community within the WDC New Local Plan - rather than relying on sites coming forward through the conventional planning process and we also understand the importance of G&T issues in the Local Plan process, however the JPC believes that any such allocation must be made on a fully democratic and objective basis.

When the June 2013 consultation was staged we were unimpressed with the level of detail provided and very disappointed at the lack of local knowledge and erroneous justifications for selected sites. It can be no surprise that local communities erupted in response to such ill thought-out blight on our district.

Given the levels of residents' responses it is surprising that the Preferred Options consultation has now followed with a similar level of erroneous information and even less quantifiable justification for the Preferred Option choices.

We find the presentation of material confusing at best given that much of the important evidence is buried on the website as "Further Evidence" and "Background" and much that is there is either erroneous and/or conflicting with the March 2014 PO document. At another level we and the vast majority of our residents who have commented found the "Drop-In Sessions" with just a couple of posters and scattered booklets to be a singularly poor way to disseminate information especially as the staff provided had minimal technical knowledge of the subject matter and made it clear that they would not be collating comment made on the day.

We are also concerned at WDC's apparent willingness to rely on the Compulsory Purchase approach given the associated costs and delays which will render most sites non-viable financially and non-deliverable in the terms required. Furthermore success of the CPO process has yet to be established as evidenced by the 2012 Mid Suffolk DC case when the Inspector found insufficient evidence to support CPO on the grounds of "public interest".

We would question WDC's election to limit site sizes to a maximum of 10 pitches, with some considerably less, as this means that site provision must then blight more communities and settlements than is reasonably necessary. If site size limitation is in order to facilitate management and policing this surely gives credence to many residents' concerns about crime and disorder in or near such sites.

Reduction in site size (or more specifically pitch numbers on individual sites) loses economies of scale in terms of establishment costs, management costs and land take whilst directly impacting a greater number of the general population.

National guidance suggests sites of 5-15 to be preferable and this would suggest that our required 31 pitches could reasonably be accommodated in two or at most three sites.

The JPC would suggest that any or all proposed sites could be best accommodated and assimilated in areas which are not current settlements and that they should be properly planned, at a very early stage, into much larger schemes preferably incorporating residential and employment development.

We find the cursory dismissal of such an approach (Page 12, end of section 5) totally unsatisfactory and unacceptable.

The JPC also believes that the Siskin Drive and Gateway area should be vigorously explored to create a site with a mechanism to accommodate the G&T community within an evolving area where they could best integrate with their surroundings.

Whilst reviewing WDC's commentaries on sites in the original and the current consultation we have found that they are erratic and inconsistent. Criteria are sometimes used to support a choice/site and at other times the same criteria are used in a converse manner. The way in which the supporting Sustainability and Sites Assessments have been used to arrive at the Preferred Options is opaque in the extreme and certainly the interpretation of the Sustainability Assessments based on colour coding appears to be minimally objective.

Examples of inconsistencies relate to noise impacts, site prominence in the landscape, flooding, agricultural land value/viability, proximity of services and pedestrian access/safety. Latterly, especially with the "GTalt" sites, there seems to be an inordinate reference to "surface flooding".

The paperwork provided and the public consultations staged also seem to take no or little account of the cost implications inherent in the various Preferred Option choices and we believe this should be a significant factor when making a final selection given the inherent importance of economic viability.

In consideration of the above the JPC has conducted an objective assessment of all the sites which have come forward under these consultations, as well as our lay skills permit, and concludes that not all of the selected Preferred Options are indeed the best sites of those presented.

The findings are presented in spreadsheet format showing support where we believe it to be appropriate. Where we draw different conclusions we offer rebuttal and further comments as seems appropriate and helpful.

The spreadsheet details are as follows:

* Column 1 - Site identification number and PO indication and JPC support or otherwise
* Column 2 - Précis of WDC comments
* Column 3 - JPC commentary
* Column 4 - Sites which JPC consider could reasonably be progressed (where sites cannot be integrated into "larger schemes").

Inevitably the JPC has been much exercised by contact from residents concerning sites proposed within our JPC parishes and we must comment that these sites seem to have been singularly poorly selected. This situation is not helped by the fact that they seem to have come forward accompanied by blatantly incorrect supporting information, viz:
* Repeated reference to Barford doctors' surgery - when the last part-time surgery closed over 30 years ago
* Inclusion of the Barford Bypass flood compensation pond area as site GT16
* Inclusion of Barford Community Orchard and Riverside Walk in GTalt12
* Inclusion of spillage/reed ponds within GT12 in March 2014
* Confusion over the maps for GT12 And GT16 in June 2013
* Confusion over the map of GT12 in March 2014
* Confusion over the map of GTalt12 in March 2014

On a purely local basis it seems bizarre and is certainly unacceptable to blight Barford, recently judged amongst the best 10 places in the Midlands (and number 57 nationally) to live, with the Preferred Options selection of such obviously poor sites. Should the Barford sites persist we are sure that residents will support the landowner in challenging Compulsory Purchase, increasing costs and delay to all concerned and further impacting deliverability.

We are also reminded that there is a duty to co-operate across boundaries and would draw your attention to the site which Stratford DC have at Blackhill, immediately adjacent to Sherbourne parish.

We hope that you will take this letter and the associated spreadsheet in the constructive manner in which it is intended, in order to assist in achieving the best possible solution for both the settled and travelling communities.