REASSURANCE has been given to Shaftesbury residents living close to a field assessed as a gypsy and traveller site.

Homeowners on Salisbury Road tabled a series of questions to a meeting of district councillors yesterday to gauge the authority’s intentions for the field south of the A30.

Rachael Franklin, who quizzed councillors and senior officers throughout the hour-long discussion, said she had felt reassured.

“I feel more comfortable now that I have heard from officers that they are doing a full site review. Naturally, I am still concerned about a site assessment in a field only 40 metres from my back garden,” she said.

“The concern is still there, but I’m reassured that they are doing a site review and not just saying, ‘That’s where its going to go.’”

Fears were raised about a month ago when a contractor showed resident Ann Brooks district council paperwork for eight traveller pitches in the field.

“The rights of the settled community seem to be rather less than for the travellers,” Mrs Brooks told yesterday’s meeting.

But Stephen Hill, the council’s general manager, said the contractors had been assessing district council land south of the A30 for potential sale as employment land to developer Persimmon Homes.

Taking the opportunity to assess the nearby field as a potential traveller site at the same time had seemed sensible, he said.

Cabinet bosses are expected to rubber-stamp a bid for £1 million from the government’s Home and Community Agency on October 30.

A review of potential traveller sites in the north of the county is due to finish at the end of the month.