The leaders of a Norfolk council pledged to make their new gipsy and traveller site consultation as transparent as possible yesterday, despite holding part of a public meeting behind closed doors.
Members of South Norfolk Council’s cabinet gave the go-ahead to a new public scrutiny process after publishing a list of nine sites in a bid to meet government guidelines to find 20 authorised encampment pitches.
However, the local authority was forced to exclude members of the public and press for about 20 minutes during the committee hearing yesterday after Murray Gray, leader of the South Norfolk Liberal Democrat group, raised concerns by referring to confidential council papers.
Members of the Conservative-led administration eventually approved a fresh eight-week public consultation, set to run between March 9 and May 5, despite concerns about the district council’s new scoring system for potential gipsy and traveller sites.
It comes after the council went back to the drawing board and reassessed its criteria in December following a wave of public objections and protests.
A new scoring system, which aims to give more weight to the views of immediate neighbours, has put forward nine potential sites along the A11, A47 and A143, from which the council is looking to create three authorised sites with six to eight pitches.
The A143 options are on land south of Scole Road, Brockdish, land north of Old Harleston Road, Earsham, and the coach depot at Old Harleston Road, Earsham, near Bungay.
Full story from the EDP
[Comments will be moderated and racism will not be tolerated]
Could the council point us to a ‘gipsy’ site that is run properly and kept clean without causing a nuisance to its immediate neighbours, and has not had a detrimental effect on the local house prices?
If the proposed site is for ‘travellers’ why would they want a site? if they want somewhere permanent then they should make their way in life like us all and pay for the things they want.
A few links for people who would like some background knowledge:
http://www.yourrights.org.uk/yourrights/rights-of-gypsies-and-travellers/definitions-of-gypsy-and-traveller.html
http://www.ellesmereport-neston.gov.uk/community/gypsyandtravellers/background.htm
http://www.communities.gov.uk/communities/racecohesionfaith/communitycohesion/combatingmisinformationabout/factsaboutgypsies/
http://www.travellerstimes.org.uk/
http://www.youtube.com/travellerstimes
http://www.ruralmedia.co.uk/index.php?nav_id_sent=4&page_id_sent=33
http://www.travellerstimes.org.uk/remember/
Come to the meeting organised by your parish council Friday 5th at 7.00pm in Brockdish village hall and have your say.
To confirm the correct date for the meeting being held by Brockdish parish council is Friday 6th March at 7.oopm in Brockdish village hall.
It’s time the gypsies realised that the days of ‘free land’ on such a small Island are long gone. They choose to live outside ‘normal’ society, which of course is their right, however it’s always the rest of society that picks up the bill for it.
If I were to submit a planning application for a caravan holiday park at the end of the road in Brockdish, there would be no hope of it being approved. The land is green field site and should remain so.
I do wonder how many new gypsy sites will get authorised in close proximity to any senior councillors residence.
A gypsy camp at the end of the road in Brockdish is not wanted by any of the locals. I do hope the council see sense and simply make the site at Norwich bigger. The new site at Norwich is out of the way, not close to peoples homes as this one would be.
I will be speaking to the action team as soon as possible but having written my letter, ther is still no list of addresses that we need to send it to. Do you have any idea when this will be available ? Will you be able to provide a site for posting pdfs of the various letters ? I’m happy to share mine.
CD