Dorset residents bombard campaigning group with traveller site complaints (From Dorset Echo)
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Dorset residents bombard campaigning group with traveller site complaints
3:00pm Saturday 3rd December 2011 in News By Martin Lea
Richard Nicholls, chairman of Dorset CPRE, in front of some of the countryside that could be at risk
CONCERNED residents have inundated a campaigning group with letters about Dorset’s proposed gypsy and traveller sites.
The Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) says there has been an ‘astounding’ response’ to the issue.
Dorset County Council has to find residential and transit sites in the county by 2013.
Public exhibitions are being held to give people the chance to comment on the proposed locations and suggest alternatives.
Dorset CPRE fears there will be an influx of travellers to the area. It has asked for views from the public before it puts together a formal response to the consultation exercise.
Branch chairman Richard Nicholls said: “We have seldom had such a large response to an issue, it really has been astounding.” The group said that all of the responses have been negative, with some people claiming that they are worried to take part in the debate openly because of fears that they will be seen to be considered ‘racist’.
CPRE says that many of the responses concentrate on the effect any building would have on areas which are currently open countryside, irrespective of for whom the sites are ear-marked.
CPRE director Trevor Bevins said: “It is the issue of building unnecessarily in open countryside, or outside the envelope of established communities, which also worries us.
“Our initial fears about this and whether or not the necessary infrastructure, such as school places, public transport and medical facilities, might also be a deciding factor in looking at these sites.”
The organisation is urging everyone to look at the proposals via council websites or through libraries where copies of the document are on display.
The next public exhibitions about the plans will be held next month at the Corn Exchange in Dorchester on January 9 from noon to 3pm and two sessions at the Pavilion Ocean Room in Weymouth – one on January 9 from 5pm to 8pm and another on January 10 from noon to 3pm.
609 piches for county
DORSET will have to find room for up to 609 residential and transit traveller pitches.
Up to 84 pitches are required in West Dorset and up to 30 in Weymouth and Portland by 2013.
The proposed sites in Weymouth include the park and ride site at Mount Pleasant, and all the sites are currently publically-owned land.
The government wants to increase the number of travelling sites with planning permission and to address the shortage, a requirement of the 2004 Housing Act.
Comments(19)
CoogarUK.com
says...
5:46pm Sat 3 Dec 11
Dorset Boy
says...
6:34pm Sat 3 Dec 11
CoogarUK.com wrote:They are camping illegally, send in the bulldozers and push the scroungers out of Dorset, preferably towards the sea
Never mine the proposed sites, what is being done about the ever-expanding one on land adjacent to the West Stafford by-pass, assuming it is not legal? Nothing but apathy from the local council so far: "They are on low incomes and we have a duty of care".
mark@greenhill
says...
8:18pm Sat 3 Dec 11
Polyvista
says...
5:46am Sun 4 Dec 11
TenBobDylanThomasHardy
says...
2:47pm Sun 4 Dec 11
mark@greenhill
says...
7:54am Mon 5 Dec 11
who in their right mind, would vote in favour of it ?
If as is stated, we have to have these scrounging wasters foisted upon us, then may I suggest that the site be situated right at the top of the Ridgeway or someplace equally inhospitable.
Hopefully, the constant wind, along with the fact that most things worth stealing, are at least 5 miles away, will deter them from wanting to stay for long ?
Iona
says...
2:49pm Mon 5 Dec 11
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Why is this incitement to ethnic hatred treated as allowable when there are plenty of other racial, ethnic and religious groups that the majority would like to condemn?
Iona
says...
3:02pm Mon 5 Dec 11
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Understandable but fascist comments - The Echo would not allow substitution of the word, "Traveller" by the words, "pakistani", "Jew", "Pole", "black" etc.
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Why is this incitement to ethnic hatred by bloggers treated as allowable when there are plenty of other racial, ethnic, and religious groups that people would like to condemn that are not so well facilitated?
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If anybody is to be condemned it is the council and the police for not ensuring that anyone from the Traveller community, or any other person, doing wrong is detected and prosecuted.
mark@greenhill
says...
5:31pm Mon 5 Dec 11
If these people wish to be treated fairly by the rest of us, they need to radically clean up their own act.
Respect is earned, not a right.
Tax your vehicles, pay insurance, income tax etc, and clean up after yourselves, pretty simple things to expect from any members of any community, especially if they are expecting a free pitch and services paid for by the rest of us ?
Extremely naive to expect any other reaction if you ask me ?
Wrinklyrod
says...
10:38am Tue 6 Dec 11
Lizzy Bennett
says...
11:54am Tue 6 Dec 11
Iona wrote:Hear hear.
Sorry for previous poorly written entry.
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Understandable but fascist comments - The Echo would not allow substitution of the word, "Traveller" by the words, "pakistani", "Jew", "Pole", "black" etc.
.
Why is this incitement to ethnic hatred by bloggers treated as allowable when there are plenty of other racial, ethnic, and religious groups that people would like to condemn that are not so well facilitated?
.
If anybody is to be condemned it is the council and the police for not ensuring that anyone from the Traveller community, or any other person, doing wrong is detected and prosecuted.
No-one is condoning law-breaking, police and council should investigate and evict like they would anyone else.
Generalisations are SO wrong. they are many law-abiding travellers, as well as the others - just like in any community.
How many people banged-up in our prisons are travellers/gypsies?
JamesYoung
says...
12:36pm Tue 6 Dec 11
Travellers have planning laws bent to meet their needs.
People like you and I, if we lost our homes unintentionally through repossession or eviction, would be at the bottom of the housing list. Certainly we wouldn't expect the council to give us land to build a new home on.
If there is racism here, it is being played out entirely on the local population by socialist politicians and the traveller population.
Iona
says...
2:53pm Tue 6 Dec 11
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We need to be clear about which individuals qualify as being a member of the ethnic groups involved. It would be quite wrong to offer the facilities to people suddenly deciding to be Travellers.
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Whilst protecting their way of life, we need to protect universal rights. Among the points on which there can be no compromise is the human rights of traveller family members - they each have a right to be educated, to choose to leave, to choose their life partner or have sex under the same laws as our mainstream populations etc.
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We have a right to expect the law to be enforced and applied to them and to us (non Travellers) without favour. The same goes for taxes. I would like to see a Traveller Local Authority charge levied nationally but we should not charge rent for their pitches.
IDONTKNOWIFITISTRRUE
says...
3:24pm Tue 6 Dec 11
'We have a right to expect the law to be enforced and applied to them and to us (non Travellers) without favour.'
By implication, you suggest that 'travellers' when not travelling, do not pay any local authority taxes.
OK but perhaps you will tell us who else, other than this group, is equally treated and allowed to leave a caravan on some-one elses ground without paying, either rent or other applicable taxes?
Equality applies equally to all people and works both ways. If these travellers who don't travel expect to be treated equally then they must expect to be treated in the same way as the rest of the population who also don't travel and have a fixed abode. I too have a distinct ethnic background but I don't expect to be treated any differently to other inhabitants of these islands.
JamesYoung
says...
7:02am Thu 8 Dec 11
And of course you could always try fly tipping and see what sympathy YOU get?
Iona
says...
10:41am Thu 8 Dec 11
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When I say understandable, I am not agreeing with the sentiment but simply acknowledging the way people react. A thoughtful group, the police, followed the same thought pattern (justified by the sort of statistics you mention, James) only to exacerbate a poor situation in London (and elsewhere) in dealing with 'Afro-Caribbean English' who were forced into negative group reaction by constant stop and search harassment. Apparently, many of those (not just Afro black) involved in the recent street riots were reacting to being the victims of negative stereotypes.
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The sentiments may be understandable but need to be resisted, as Lizzy Bennett agrees.
trymybest
says...
4:14pm Thu 8 Dec 11
JamesYoung
says...
5:48pm Thu 8 Dec 11
"In the public sector men from ethnic minorities working full time now earn slightly more than their white male colleagues, but in the private sector, for every pound a white man earns, a man from an ethnic minority earns just 89 pence."
So a liberal government believes it right that affirmative action has led to discrimination against white workers in the public sector. Either they are receiving a better hourly rate, or they have been disproportionately awarded promotions. Do you think this is a problem? It certainly is if you are affected by it - you are far more likely to listen to the BNP if your black colleague earns more than you simply because he or she isn't white.
This is my problem. I am proud of the strides we've taken in this country and i stood and cheered the day that Obama made President in the US. However, equality should be just that.
Lizzy's earlier statement was that our society was not compatible with traveller's lifestyles and we need to change. But the very word "society" implies a group of people living within the same rules. Should we also therefore accept the 61-81% incidence of domestic violence against women in the traveller community? It's higher than in the settled community, but hey, our mores are clearly not compatible with theirs. How about arranged marriage? How about child marriage? They all exist in countries from which immigrant communities have come to Britain.
I suppose that is where we disagree. Skin colour, religion, sexuality make no odds to me. But society can only function if all the individual units within it accept the same restrictions. One society. One people. One set of rules. (and i didn't say "one Fuhrer" so don't be tempted to bring Hitler into this :-) !)
And a final point on ethnicity. Sinti, Roma, Romani, yes. But to class a subset of the Irish population who choose to live in caravans as an ethnic group? There are tens of thousands of English people living on boats in the UK. Are they an ethnic group too?
So, on that basis, if travellers wish to apply for planning permission, they, and not the council, should be free to do so. They should be free to invest in infrastructure for their site, and be subject to the same rules as the rest of us - ie, adequate provision of sanitation, provision for sewerage, etc. And if they choose to trespass on land that is not theirs, they should be fined. Fly tipping - fined. Truancy - prosecution.
Dorset Boy says...
5:26pm Sat 3 Dec 11