‘Horror’ at site for travellers in Shaftesbury

Ann Brooks said she learned of district council plans for an eight-pitch traveller encampment adjacent to her garden on Salisbury Road from a contractor working in the field behind her home.

Mrs Brooks told the Daily Echo her reaction had been one of “horror”.

“It would be directly in line with the views from these properties of Melbury Hill, Win Green Hill, and Compton Abbas air field,” she said.

“Any development in that field would be tragic.”

Mrs Brooks said local people were united in their opposition to development in the field and said she had been treated “shabbily” by council officials.

Town mayor Cllr Lester Dibben said he had learned of the district council’s site assessment from angry residents. “There’s been no consultation with the town council and this site appears to have been identified. To me, that doesn’t line up with a consultation process,” he said.

“It seems to me that they have already made their decision.”

North Dorset District Council has already spent £10,000 on preparing a bid for £1 million of government funding to develop a camp in Shaftesbury.

But Stephen Hill, general manager at North Dorset District Council, insisted a preferred site had not been chosen.

“I have written to residents in Shaftesbury who live close by the existing gypsy site, not because they live adjacent to a preferred site, because we don’t know where the preferred site is going to be,” he said.

A bid for government cash in 2007 to develop a site in Shaftesbury had failed due to a lack of planning permission, he said, adding that a second bid made in August was likely to do the same.

Contractors already working on land earmarked for employment development south of the A30 had been asked to complete the site assessment, said Mr Hill.

Letters had been sent on Monday to residents near the Shaftesbury site, and to parish and town councils in Bourton, Gillingham, Marnhull and Shaftesbury, he added.

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