A RULING by a planning inspector gives sufficient grounds for a planning application for a site for travellers on Redditch Road to be rejected, Studley parish council has been told.
Meeting on Tuesday night members heard that a previous application to build a house on a plot near the land in question had been thrown out by the planning inspector.
The current, retrospective, planning application calls for a ‘material change of use from vacant/agricultural land to residential caravan site for two pitches for occupation by Gypsy traveller family with associated hard standing, package treatment plant, utility blocks, storage sheds and dog runs’.
Councillors were told the principle of development in the green belt had already been set.
They heard the green belt separating Redditch and Studley was regarded as high value and there was a presumption against development in the gap.
This has been endorsed in not only Stratford district council’s core strategy but also in the parish plan and the current neighbourhood plan and any development would be contrary to planning laws protecting the green belt.
The land in question is opposite The Poplars and is already owned by the traveller community.
The encampment appeared in early in the morning back in June, a hard core base put down for access and wooden gates put up.
Letters of objection cite development in the green belt, concern over sewage and claims more than two caravans are already on site.
There are also complaints that the noise from a generator can be distinctly heard and there’s disquiet at the manner in which the travellers arrived.
One letter in support says the families concerned are ‘a really nice bunch of people’ who ‘only want a place they can call home’.
Stratford district council has imposed a tree preservation order on land fronting nearby Green Lane following reports that land was being cleared and trees felled.
