Residents blast council's decision to approve travellers' site proposal

12:03pm Monday 29th June 2009

By Ali Dent

"ONE rule for them and another rule for us", that is the feeling of angry people living near Homefield in Rangeworthy, where planning permission for a travellers’ site has been granted.

South Gloucestershire Council backed plans for five gypsy families to live on the site in Hall End Lane despite recently taking landowner Colin Morgan to the High Court to ensure the removal of one mobile home.

Planning officer Donna Whinham told a packed meeting of the council’s development control committee last Thursday: "We don’t apply policies equally but apply the policy that is relevant.

She said the policies that the council used to fight the Morgan family, who do not have traveller status, were different from the rules applied to this new application.

"We are sensitive that it appears the council has changed its mind, particularly from the local residents’ point of view," she said. "But our view is slightly different because of the nature of the application."

Councillors voted seven to six in favour of allowing the travellers’ site after a call to dismiss the application failed to win support.

Members of the committee from the Yate and Chipping Sodbury area were unanimous in their opposition to the plans.

Cllr Alan Lawrance (Lib Dem, Dodington) said: "It appears that we treat one group of people one way and another group of people another way.

"In my opinion this application is not being treated in an equal way or as the vast majority of residents in South Gloucestershire would be treated."

Cllr Pat Hockey (Lib Dem, Frampton Cotterell) said the application was ‘premature’ and should not have been submitted until a consultation looking at the feasibility of more than 20 sites across the area has been completed.

She said: "It seems very much to me that this planning application has jumped the gun.

"If this council approves it then the commitments made in that consultation to involve communities at an early stage will have been fraud."

The travellers’ site at Homefield will include five transit pitches, five day rooms and five hardstanding pitches. It will be just metres away from Terry Cornock’s home at Old Hallen Farm.

In a letter read out on his family’s behalf, Mr Cornock said: "Our lives have been in complete turmoil for the past eight months.

"We do not know how we are going to cope if it is approved. It would be an intolerable and vulnerable situation in which we would have to live out the rest of our lives."

Around 200 members of the Hall End Action Group, which was set up last year to fight the proposals, were left dismayed after the meeting at Kingswood Civic Centre.

Chairman Chris Jones said people were worried the approval of the plans has set a precedent for other travellers’ sites to get the go ahead.

He said: "If this site is ‘suitable’ what chance have we got of defending any field in South Gloucestershire against a similar decision within the current planning rules?