Council to fight travellers' plan

PLANNING bosses at Warrington want to fight a bid by travellers to expand an existing Green Belt camp site.
The borough council’s development management committee will be asked to throw out an application to extend the site at Cartridge Lane, Grappenhall when it meets in the New Year..
Traveller John Smith is seeking a retrospective change of use of part of the site to enable two mobile homes and 10 touring caravans to be sited there.
Utility blocks, a septic tanks and additional hard standing is also included in the application.
Temporary permission to use the site was granted after an appeal in 2008 and despite furious opposition from nearby residents and parish councils.
This consent expired in October 2011 so the current development is unauthorised, the officers say.
New objections have been lodged by Grappenhall and Thelwall Parish Council, Appleton Parish Council, borough councillor Ted Finnegan, South Warrington MP David Mowat and 34 nearby residents.
Planners say unlike the proposals put forward in 2008, the new application would represent a “major” development if it were for conventional housing.
Approval of the application would facilitate the evolution of the site into a significant base for the applicants, their various businesses, their vehicles and animals
In a report to the committee, officers say: “Given the lack of quantitative need and the absence of a robust case showing how the applicants may have sought to secure an alternative site, it is the concluded that the impact of the proposal on the Green Belt would be harmful by way of inappropriateness – and that such harm is not outweighed by exceptional circumstances.
Officers are recommending the application be refused.