Progress on Derbyshire Dales District Council's search for potential permanent Traveller sites will be reported to councillors at a meeting later this month.
The Community and Environment Committee will debate on 21 November a report from consultants that have been scouring the district for possible sites to meet the District Council's statutory requirement to provide permanent facilities for the Travelling community.
Detailed assessments have been carried out at six sites locally, but the report to the meeting recommends three of these are not progressed any further at the present time, including the Woodyard at Homesford - currently the only site in the district with planning consent for use as a Traveller site - where the cost of bringing that particular site forward has been estimated at £1.3-million.
The District Council requested that consultants identify two sites in the Dales with an approximate area of between 2500sqm and 3500sqm, ensuring each pitch would allow space for a mobile home and touring caravan as well as amenity building, parking and vehicle turning room.
The report states that the eight-pitch design at the Woodyard that was granted planning approval did not match the Council’s own requirements and specification for permanent pitches. Instead, a five-pitch site had been drawn up by architects to encourage a sustainable tenancy, but even the reduced design "performed very poorly", the report concludes.
Also ruled out at the present time as potential permanent Traveller sites in the report are Rowsley's Station Yard car park, due to site constraints, and the Derbyshire County Council site in Ashbourne's Watery Lane, which was originally designated as an approved permanent Traveller site in the District Council's Local Plan back in 2017.
The report states that the Watery Lane site briefly appeared on the County Council’s website recently seeking offers for a two-year lease, but that the site disappeared from the website following an approach by the District Council's consultants.
That leaves three remaining potential sites, but as all are in private ownership, these will remain anonymous for the time being to allow further assessments to take place.
Members of the Community and Environment Committee will be recommended to approve £25,000 being set aside for a further phase of work to assess the viability of the three remaining sites.
Councillors will also be recommended to agree to revise the authority's approach to include the use of auctions to buy possible permanent and/or temporary Traveller sites, subject to the development of an appropriate delegation policy. If councillors agree, this option will be presented to a future meeting of the Committee for approval.
Other business at the meeting includes a report on the Council's Empty Homes Strategy and next steps, and a report setting out options for defending an appeal at a Planning Inquiry relating to a development application in Matlock's Gritstone Road, which was recommended for refusal by Officers and refused by the Planning Committee.
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