Refusal of travellers’ site at Glinton, near Peterborough, sparks November planning appeal hearing

An appeal has been lodged against the refusal of planning permission for a Travellers’ caravan site.

A hearing will take place later this month to reconsider Peterborough City Council’s decision not to allow a site for Traveller families to be located off Lincoln Road, Glinton.

The site was created without permission in May, and retrospective planning permission was then sought. These plans received 32 objections, including from Glinton Parish Council which said villagers had reported anti-social behaviour and intimidation coming from the site.

Lincoln Road resident Andrea Page believes if the appeal is upheld it would ‘change the face of national planning applications’.

“I can't begin to go into the adverse impact this is having on the local community - the outcome of this appeal, should the Travellers succeed in their quest, is huge,” she said.

She said that no development had been allowed there since the 1960s when the row of houses were built.

“Should this be approved, it will open the door to widescale development, which ultimately sees the loss of the open countryside as we know it.”

Despite the objections, planning officers had originally recommended approving planning permission, saying anti-social behaviour could not be given as a reason for refusal.

But in late July, Peterborough City Council’s planning committee voted the other way, saying it would have an “unacceptable adverse impact on the character and appearance of the area”.

The council issued an enforcement notice to remove all caravan and motorhomes and to take up the hardstanding.

Applicant Martin McDonagh then lodged an appeal, in August, against the refusal through planning agent Philip Brown.

They argue that local and national planning policies allow for Gypsy and Traveller sites in the countryside and that the policies would be ‘pointless’ if Traveller caravan sites were seen as ‘unacceptably harmful’ to the countryside.

“Some level of change to the character and appearance of the countryside must be acceptable,” Mr Brown said.

He added that the site was near a row of residential properties, so was not ‘unduly discordant with the existing character’.

In response, the council insists that despite a ‘small cluster’ of properties, the land had been undeveloped and that the ‘significant character change in the landscape weighs against the application’.

“The benefit from delivering pitches toward an unknown need were not outweighed by the harm exacerbated by the scale and its location within the open countryside,” it added.

John Harwood has lived next door to the site for 47 years and had rented the field from a farmer for 15 years.

He said he chose not to buy the field when it was put up for sale having been assured development would never be allowed.

In a letter of objection to the council over the initial plans, he said on May 25 ‘track machinery crashed through the field gateway and decimated the landscape’.

Mr Harwood, who worked in the construction industry for 60 years, said the work carried out had raised the land and will worsen already ‘extensive’ flooding issues for his home.

“To say that I am shocked at the devastation caused would be an understatement,” he said.

Mr Harwood’s daughter Tracy, a research professor who works from the family home, said it was difficult to concentrate due to ‘screaming children, car alarms and horns blasting, portable toilet doors banging, excessive noise, dogs yapping, generators and music going all day and night’.

“We have also been visited multiple times by police and are continually concerned about our security,” she said.

The hearing will be held on Tuesday, November 26 at Peterborough Town Hall.