Hundreds oppose Bishops Green travellers' site plan

Proposals submitted to Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council on July 29, for Meadowview Caravan Site, Rooksfield, Bishops Green, included alterations to the site to provide a private travellers’ caravan site, consisting of three mobile homes, one amenity building, a bike shed, dog kennel, car parking and ancillary development.
The borough council confirmed on Friday that a total of 280 objections to the proposals had been received, along with one communication in support and two comments.
Ecchinswell, Sydmonton and Bishops Green Parish Council said that 25 parishioners attended a council meeting over the issue in October, and that there was local concern, “basically around the fact that the applicant hadn’t complied with the conditions attached to previous planning permission and, to paraphrase, what started as a planning application for a home for the applicant will become a full blown traveller’s site, in an area that has previously been deemed unsustainable”, said the clerk to the parish council, Doreen Gascoigne.
On these grounds, the parish council opposed the application and had met borough council planners to decide the best way forwards.
Tony Forward, Bishops Green villager and the chairman of neighbouring Greenham Parish Council in West Berkshire, said that he was planning to object on the grounds that the site was outside the village settlement policy boundary, and that the national policy on travellers sites dictated that they should be located near major centres of population, such as Basingstoke:
“This is an AONB and part of Hampshire’s landscape heritage,” said Mr Forward, adding that this was “development by stealth” in the countryside.
“It’s clearly contrary to the national policy on travellers, which makes it clear you cannot have a traveller’s site just anywhere – there has to be a good cause,” said Mr Forward.
Previous proposals for the site have gone to appeal, following which approval was granted by an inspector for one mobile home and an ancillary vehicle (ie a caravan), on condition that only two travellers lived at the site.
Mr Forward said that he had also been contacted by residents of Greenham parish, with similar concerns.
The agent for the applicant, Angus Murdoch, of Murdoch Planning, Somerset, was unavailable for comment.
The borough council has confirmed that it would be liaising with Hampshire County Council on the application, in order to ascertain genuine traveller status.
The application was then likely to go before the planning committee at the borough council in Basingstoke, possibly in January, or February next year.