IT’S certainly been a roller-coaster few weeks since Kenyon Lane Croft, hit the headlines as the preferred location for a gypsy traveller transit site.
Cllr. Neil Johnson’s decision to resign from the Labour Party and breach the confidentially of the working party to find a suitable location has certainly split opinion.
While it has been frowned upon in the corridors of power and with other elected politicians at Warrington Borough Council, it has been welcomed by many local residents.
While I fully understand the reasons why these difficult decisions need to be kept out of the public domain, I also fully understand the reasons why Cllr. Johnson took the decision to leak the location.
At the end of the day he is elected to represent local people and he felt on this occasion, the need for people to know outweighed secrecy while a deal was completed.
The problem we now have is how are we going to find a suitable transit site which the council has a legal obligation to find?
This is the second time in about 10 years a suitable location has been found and the second time the location has been leaked, leading to it being scrapped.
So, what is going to stop the next location being leaked? At the end of the day few people want a transit site on their doorstep.
So, what is the solution – well how about some common sense?
Travellers want to be near motorway networks and we have service stations up and down the country – so why not just designate transit sites up and down the country attached to service stations?
We even have a new service station being built near Croft on the motorway network while the Poplars Truck Stop near Lymm, is surrounded by fields and seeking expansion.
Would these locations not provide a solution with all sides happy? Or is that too much just like common sense? It could even be a condition of planning consent that a traveller site is part of the development!
7 Comments
I think the service station near Croft you refer to is actually just off junction 11 on the M62 and is nearer to Culcheth – and Birchwood just over the motorway. There was quite a vocal and local furore over this receiving planning permission in the first place, imagine what it would be like if a Traveller Transit Site was attached – Cllr Johnson would be apoplectic!
Well it is happening now anyway. A controlled transit site as part of it would keep all the disruption in one place and resolve a long-standing issue for the whole town.
Exactly and well said , the entire Birchwood Council opposed this service station and it went to the Secretary of State / Highways England I believe who overruled the Council . Any further changes would require a new application so very much doubt this will be an option . Also not forgetting this land is owned by BIFFA and not WBC and there is also a large solar farm being built alongside the new service station again on land owned by BIFFA which is another reason this would not be approved if even considered. Poplar 2000 would easily support a transit site or when the 6/56 Logistics Depot could if approved have a transit site built into the plans ?
In reality no one wants this site anywhere near to where they live. Travellers are a problems wherever they go. Why should the council waste good money on a site? Change the law and as soon as they rock up move them on.
The Law is already in place with the amended Police Crime , Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 which gives Police the powers to move illegal encampments on private or public land even if it is a single vehicle / caravan . The law states very clearly there only needs to be the “likelihood” there will be damage , disruption and distress , including excessive noise , smells , litter or waste deposits and disorderly behaviour is likely to occur for the act to come into force .
They actually try to avoid motorways since they’re well policed, in our part of the country the A49 is their ‘motorway’.
In my experience of these “TRANSIT” camps (which I have had a lot of over many years working with local authorities who bend over backwards for the non tax-paying infidels that frequent them,), within a couple of years when all the dust has settled, they become permanent camps for the “Head” travellors to reside in. They are then not fit for use as transit camps. There is only one answer, and we all know what that is dont we? But you are all too bendy spined to say it. You will all get what you deserve at the end of the day.