Thank you all for your words of support and for signing our petition.
The Council held their second 'drop in' session last night. We turned up in force to keep asking them questions they seem incapable of answering. It's very difficult to control one's temper when you hear them lying constantly. I interrupted a conversation between their Comms man and a local person: he was saying that a) there will be no problem moving mobile homes on to the site because they can ask residents to move their cars for the day, and b) touring caravans aren't a problem because travellers use the standard 2.2m width variety. I asked him why he was still saying this when we told them 4 years ago travellers often have caravans 2.55m in width (3.05m with wing mirrors); and he himself was at the public meeting last week where we yet again told his boss this fact.
On static homes: it's not as simple as he says. It isn't only people in the street who park there. He's saying that every time a new static home is moved to the site (and that could be several times a year), first the travellers are going to inform the Council with plenty of notice; then the Council is going to contact everyone with a car in the street (even though they don't know who they all are); then - and this really is wishful thinking - the residents are going to tamely move their cars!
The Council gave us written assurances that when the previous planning permission ran out in April this year, they did not want to use this site for travellers. The permission duly expired - showed as 'withdrawn' on their website. Then a few months ago, they re-entered it as 'granted'. In the intervening months we know of two people who bought properties near the site on the basis that there was no planning permission for it. We're investigating whether or not this is legal.
The Council also promised us they would tell us if they had plans for the site. They didn't. We only found out two days before the Mayor's meeting to give the plan the go ahead because a reporter called down our road to ask us what we thought of it. Yet they consulted the travelling community about it 8 months ago. Clear violation of government guidelines to consult both communities early.
And get this. A few months ago, the Council (suspiciously it now turns out) decided to re-surface our street. However, they didn't paint back in the parking lines after, i.e. the new surface and lack of lines made the gap look wider. They also didn't re-surface the bit at the end, where the gate to the site is, which they will have to re-build for a travellers' site entrance. We (not knowing at the time they were planning to re-open the permission for travellers at the site) pushed them to re-paint the lines. Eventually they did, but they've painted them 3cm closer to the curb! We asked the guys doing the work why, and they said because they'd been told to, so 4x4s couldn't park there.
Now, the gap measures 2.9m between bays and far curb, not 2.6m as the Council measured it before. However, this doesn't alter the fact that the actual space available, between cars and curb is only around 2.5m and, as said, traveller caravans can be 2.55/3.05m.
Apologies for a long post, but I thought you might be interested to hear a little more about our cause.
http://www.savechurchgrove.com