Why This Must Be Opposed.

I was surprised to be contacted by Terry Tree and Kate this morning to be informed that members of the travelling community have purchased land off Hayne Lane and that permission is now being sought to establish a travellers site there.. It would seem that the purchasers of the land run beer gardens at music festivals and wish to establish a horticultural business at Hayne Lane and intend to live in two yurts to be erected there. They also want an additional pitch on the Oak Meadow site for the accomodation of co workers and members of their extended families. Their application is being supported by Friends, Families And Travellers, a travellers advice project.

The issue of travellers is obviously a contentious one for many rural communities. Travellers, Romany and otherwise, have been part of the British countryside for the best part of the past thousand years and the travvelling and settled communities have co existed more or less peacefully for most of that time. Problems have increasingly arisen since the 1970s when urban dwellers seeking an alternative lifestyle have taken to a travelling lifestyle, whilst the countryside has come under increasing pressure from urban development and expanding road networks making sites for travellers more difficult to obtain. The situation has not been helped by the failure of successive governments to develop a coherent strategy to minimise conflicts between those who follow the settled and travelling ways of life.

The Hayne Lane proposal must be opposed, in my view, because first and foremost, Hayne Lane is totally unsuitable for this type of development.As Derek and Lesley Vanstone point out in a letter of objection to Mid Devon Council, Hayne Lane already has an 8ft width restriction and is a single track private road. The Lane, nearly as far as the proposed development at Oak Meadow is a public right of way used by cyclists, walkers and people with prams and pushchairs. Because of this public safety needs to be a prime consideration in any consideration of this planning application. It is also pointed out in the letter of objection, that the open ended proposal connected with pich 2 makes no mention of how many vehicles and people thispitch might be expected to take. I consider that these considerations should be at the centre of objections to this proposal along with some wider considerations.

This blog has commented before on the difficult situation facing walkers on the Babylon Road and New Barn Roads regarding increasing traffic flow. This proposal would undoubtedly make an increasingly bad situation worse. Silverton already has serious problems because of poor road access and, if approved, this proposal would only increase the strain. It has also to be pointed out that Mid Devon has no traveller sites and one must suspect that this badly sited project could become the basis for something larger causing increasing friction between the travelling and settled communities. I also think that this proposal should be opposed because, yet again, a contentious proposal has been amatter of discussion between local government agencies and other bodies, no attempt has been made to inform or engage with the local community over an issue that is bound to be of concern to many.

Unfortunately, as with the recent matter of the wind turbine, there is only a short time to register objections. Objections must be with Mid Devon Council Planning Department by April 3rd.