Plan to extend travellers’site

Councillors are expected to rubberstamp a planning application to extend a travellers’ caravan site in Hartwood.

The applicant, Mr Hughie Reid, is proposing to permanently change the use of land at the site at Foulburn Farm to form an additional residential caravan pitch, containing a principal chalet, three touring caravans and two amenity blocks.

The main chalet and an amenity block, ancillary touring caravan, and fencing are already in place, so the application is largely retrospective, but the plans also show an adjacent part of the site next to the railway line being laid out as an ancillary pitch for two further ancillary touring caravans with their own amenity block.

Council officers have recommended in a report going before North L a na rk s h i re C o u n c i l’s p l a n n i n g committee that permission for the change of use be granted.

An assessment of the application going before councillors on the committee this Thursday, October 14, acknowledges it is contrary to the local development plan.

H o w e v e r, t h e r e is reasoned justification for granting planning permission as there is an acknowledged need for additional sites of this type.

The site, which is approximately 0.4 hectares of rural land, contains one residential caravan pitch with a chalet-style mobile home, an amenity block and a storage shed along with associated parking and an area of rough ground, located within the countryside one kilometre north west of Allanton.

The site’s residents are members of the Traveller community and the pitch is a family home. While there were no neighbours that required notification of the planning application it was advertised in the local press and the council received no representations.