£1m price tag for seven pitches for travellers
ANEW Gypsy-traveller site with just seven pitches could cost more than £1m – and two traveller families involved do not seem keen on living there.
Swansea Council needs to increase its Gypsy-traveller site provision by 2020 and has earmarked a riverside plot of land at Pant Y Blawd Road, Llansamlet, for this purpose.
It now has planning permission to build the seven pitches, which would each have toilet and washing facilities.
Council chiefs look set to apply for Welsh Government funding to cover the costs, subject to a decision at an external funding panel meeting on July 4.
A report going before the panel, which is chaired by council leader Rob Stewart, said: “Whilst the exact cost of the project is yet to be realised there is potential for costs to exceed £1m.”
Some elements of the project, such as drainage work, may not be eligible for grant funding though.
There has been opposition to the proposals, including from members of two traveller families who currently live at a tolerated but unauthorised site off nearby Mill Stream Way.
One objection, representing five members of one family and one of the other, said they did not want to up sticks and move to the new site.
They felt the new site was too close to the city’s only authorised site, and that it should therefore be used to accommodate the families at the authorised one when they needed extra pitches.
“We’re not going to take their space,” said the objection letter. “We need our own place to live which can grow with the family.
“We will not live on the land by Pant Y Blawd (Road).”
The two families won the right to stay at the tolerated site more than a decade ago following a court ruling.
“We have been waiting 11 years for a site,” added the objection letter.
“All the harsh winters we have lived through with no facilities and we have babies and children in our family.
“We feel like we are the forgotten people of Swansea.”
Another objector said the new site had too few pitches, meaning she would not be able to live there.
And a company in the area said it objected to the new site on various grounds, adding: “We understand that other businesses in our area share our concerns.”
A Gypsy-traveller advocacy group called Travelling Ahead also raised concerns about the new site during the planning application stage.
It said the two families wanted to stay at the tolerated site – but the council said the new site was planned in order to fulfil an identified need for extra pitches in Swansea.
A council spokesman added: “No decisions have been made about the site at Mill Stream Way.”