Unauthorised traveller site has 'urbanised' Lambourn Woodlands beauty spot

AN unauthorised traveller site has damaged an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), admit planners.

Frustrated residents say they alerted West Berkshire Council to the works in progress but that they nevertheless continued.

Now planners have rejected a bid to change the land use and site a mobile home and touring caravan on land west of Four Acres Yard and south of Ermin Street in Lambourn Woodlands.

But the damage remains.

In its formal objection to the application, Lambourn Parish Council cited "material harm to the physical and visual impact on the AONB," and added: "The work that has already commenced has materially changed and damaged the character of the AONB."

The application generated 10 letters of objection and two of support.

One objector stated: "A new access has been created, by the removal of hedging and trees to allow access to the plot.

"Having contacted the [West Berkshire Council] planning department months before this development began, regarding news of the intentions, and then again when the movement of hedging, of diggers on site and clearly a redevelopment of a plot of agricultural land, I am disappointed to see that it slipped through the net".

Another wrote: "The applicants have already completed all the works to the site without any planning permission."

A planning officer's report acknowledged: "The site is rural in nature within the AONB, an area of nationally significant landscape importance.

"The works already undertaken and proposed appear at odds with the surrounding rural character and have an urbanising effect on the character and appearance of the area."

The report also acknowledged: "It is recognised that there is a positive obligation imposed by Article 8 of the Human Rights Act 1998 to facilitate the gypsy way of life, and that refusal to grant planning permission would represent an interference in the applicant's home and family life."

However, this did not outweigh the other considerations, the report concluded.

West Berkshire Council did not immediately respond when asked by this newspaper whether the applicant will be required to reverse any material damage to the area.