AN APPEAL has been launched after plans submitted for a new gypsy and traveller site were refused.

The application was submitted in September last year, for a site at Tricky's Paddock on Brickworth Road in Whiteparish.

It was for permission to create two pitches, each pitch accommodating two caravans, including no more than one static caravan/mobile home.

It also included plans for a dayroom together with the laying of hardstanding and installation of a package sewage treatment plant.

The current use of the site is part caravan site for one pitch and part grazing land, and a previous application to extend this site was granted on appeal in 2009, but the permission was temporary and subsequent applications and appeals have resulted in conditions limiting the duration of permission to be removed.

'Undue and detrimental impacts'

Wiltshire Council refused the application, saying the application is "identical to that of the previously refused application 19/09862/VAR".

Sam Fox, Director Economic Development & Planning, added in their decision letter: "Whilst new planting around the additional pitch and extended site area is shown on the submitted proposed plans, this would likely take a number of years to establish and mature sufficiently to provide a meaningful and appropriate level of screening in order to sufficiently mitigate the adverse visual impact of the additional pitch within the character of the surrounding landscape.

"In this respect it is considered the development would be likely to result in undue and detrimental visual impacts on the character of the surrounding Special Landscape Area."

'Impossible to justify reconsideration'

Wiltshire Councillor for Alderbury and Whiteparish called the application in, saying: "An identical application has already been refused by the council's Strategic Planning Committee and it is impossible to see any additional information which would justify reconsideration.

"It is incorrect to refer to the existing pitch as a general-use gypsy and traveller site. It is a single pitch approved for a single named family to be returned to agricultural use when such use ends."

Whiteparish Parish Council also opposed the plans, adding: "Previous planning applications conditions have been flouted and the Parish Council has been perplexed by the lack of enforcement by the planning authority including previously imposed occupancy conditions not being enforced. There are designated gypsy and traveller sites and this is not one."

The appeal is to be decided on the basis of Hearing procedure.

No date, venue or time for the Hearing has been established as yet.

To view the plans and decision letters, click here.

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