Farmers ‘partly to blame’ for traveller problems
FARMERS ARE partly to blame for problems created by illegal traveller sites around a Yorkshire city, a senior council officer has suggested.
Ian Garratt, the team leader of Wakefield City Council’s planning enforcement team, claimed that some farmers were selling land to groups who then set up camps without permission.
A study by the authority two years ago revealed that an extra 28 new pitches needed to be set aside for the travelling community in the Wakefield district before 2021.
But speaking at a public meeting yesterday, Mr Garratt said that planning permission for several locations had been rejected and the council “hadn’t yet satisfied demand” for the growing numbers of travellers in the area.
As a result, inspectors are increasingly allowing travellers to stay on land they have moved on to while they apply for retrospective planning permission.
One parish council clerk told the meeting she found the sight of blockades around fields to keep travellers off “a sad situation”.
In response, Mr Garratt said: “I have a lot of empathy with what you’re saying. There are obvious pressures. The local farmers are in part responsible for the situation we’re in.
“There’s some farmers who are actively selling off part of their estates, which as it’s private land we’ve no control over. They get paid and they walk away and we get the enforcement issues and we get the complaints from members of the public. There’s no happy balance I’m afraid.”
Over the past year, a number of applications related to traveller sites have caused controversy in Wakefield. In February, more than 60 objections were tabled against a plan to expand an existing private site in Normanton.
In August, travellers were evicted from playing fields in Stanley after several days.