Council urged to approve travellers’site on greenbelt

The site is on green belt land off New Hey Road at Scammonden next to a demolished cottage and close to the former Nont Sarah’s pub pitches in Kirklees over the next five years, but said: “The council does not currently have a policy for the provision of traveller accommodation and, furthermore, this policy vacuum has existed since 2007.”

It said the council’s “long-standing failure” to provide travellers’ pitches added weight to the case for this application to be approved. It said: “It is likely to be next year before the council will have an up-to-date Local Plan and be in a position to identify a five-year supply of deliverable land for gypsy sites.”

Philip Brown, of Philip Brown Associates, said: “The site provides a settled base from which the family can register with a doctor and enrol their children into an appropriate school, but they will continue to travel because that is part of their way of life.”

He said the site would not be used by other travellers.

Mr Brown, who specialises in such applications, said councils often had a “presumption to refuse applications from travellers because it is seen as an unpopular type of development” and said there was “a tension between where the council would want to see gypsy sites and where the public want to see gypsy sites”.

Kirklees Highways and West Yorkshire Police have raised no objection to the scheme. No decision date has yet been set for the application.