GROUP TOLD TO STOP DIGGING
ACOUNCIL has ordered a group to stop excavating land which has turned a hillside into an eyesore. Land below Nantyglo Rugby Club in Blaenau Gwent was excavated a week ago.
Residents living beside the land have said Travellers have been digging up the site. It is understood the group has bought the site but as yet doesn’t have planning permission to develop there.
More than 600 people have already signed a petition against the work being done on land close to Porters Road and Banna Bungalows in the town. Locals reported digging throughout the night with heavy machinery used.
A resident who has lived in Banna Bungalows for 25 years but wanted to remain anonymous said the work happened quickly and he had been left with huge mounds of earth behind his property.
He said: “They’ve just completely bulldozed the ground.”
Land registry documents show there is a covenant on the land which dates back to 1996 stating it can only be used for grazing. It states no buildings should be erected on the land. The owner of the site said the land would be used for grazing horses.
In a statement on Friday afternoon, a spokesperson for Blaenau Gwent council accused the group of breaching planning control. They said the council had ordered the work to stop at least temporarily.
“We have served a temporary stop notice to the landowners and interested parties using the relevant powers under the Town and County Planning Act 1990,” they said.
“The notice will remain in force for 28 days and we are considering options for when it expires. We consider that there has been a breach of planning control by the unauthorised excavation of this land. This includes the importation of material, creation of embankments and reproofing the area. The notice requires that activity is stopped with immediate effect.”
The council alleges work hadn’t been carried out with “sound engineering practices”, adding that it had taken the decision to force the developers to stop due to issues “including appropriate retaining works, site compaction, appropriate use of gradients to embankments and drainage to ensure the long-term stability of the site”.
After worried residents contacted the council regarding the safety of the land and the potential of a landslip, the council spokesperson said the authority commissioned independent geotechnical and geoenvironmental specialists to assess the stability of the land. The specialists confirmed that the land posed “no immediate risk to nearby properties”.
Local authorities are obliged to provide sites for Travellers but in Wales many authorities still do not hit targets.
In response to the petition signed by locals in Nantyglo, a counter-petition has been created by someone claiming to be part of the Traveller group who said: “Our family and kids need somewhere to live, to raise our family. (The) council is not providing us with the right needs so we are doing our own property up which we are entitled to do.”
In 2022 the Senedd’s Local Government and Housing Committee called for immediate action after its report illustrated “wide-ranging failures by the Welsh Government and local authorities to provide adequate sites for Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities”. The report found many sites were situated in inappropriate areas such as beside dangerous roads or far away from services.
This was supported by Travelling Ahead, an organisation supporting nomadic people, which told the committee that “some of the things that have gone on locally and regionally would not be acceptable if that was about any other group, or any other group of citizens or any other ethnic minority”.
This week the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales published its findings following its own investigation into two local authorities in Wales following a complaint which found the “Welsh Government has failed to ensure local authorities are carrying out their duties in respect of the provision of accommodation for Gypsies and Travellers”.
The Housing (Wales) Act 2014 introduced a legal duty on local authorities to produce Gypsy and Traveller accommodation assessments (GTAAs) and submit them to the Welsh Government for approval. If an approved GTAA shows need for accommodation for Gypsies and Travellers in a local authority region the Housing (Wales) Act 2014 requires a council to use its powers to meet that need. The Welsh Government had committed to annual monitoring of councils to ensure each council is acting on the findings of their GTAAs.
But the ombudsman found that while the legal duty to provide accommodation for Gypsies and Travellers, where needed, falls to local authorities, the Welsh Government had “failed to fulfil its critical leadership role in ensuring this happened”. No monitoring of approved GTAAs had taken place since January 2020.
The ombudsman recommended the Welsh Government apologise to the complainants and pay them £1,000 each for the failings identified and the impact on them. Other recommendations include ensuring it informs local authorities clearly of the requirement to continue to take steps to meet identified need.
The complainants said: “We are very glad that our complaint to the ombudsman has been upheld. It proves to the general public that this government was quick to pass legislation in 2014 to make sites for Gypsies and Travellers but failed to monitor councils to make sure sites were provided...
“This also gave councils the impression that they don’t have to abide by their legal duties in the Housing (Wales) Act 2014... Please remember that there have been very few residential sites made across Wales and not one transit site has ever been developed anywhere in Wales since the legal duty came in – leaving us and the general public frustrated with nowhere for our families to live permanently or park our vehicles while travelling, 10 years after the act came in. This lack of progress is shocking.”
A Welsh Government spokesperson said: “We accept all the recommendations of the report from the Public Services Ombudsman. Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people are amongst the most marginalised people in society and face significant inequality. We are working with Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people themselves, partners and local authorities to meet their needs as a key part of our Anti-racist Wales Action Plan. We are providing capital funding of £3.44m in 2024-25 for local authorities to improve, extend or build new Gypsy and Traveller sites.”