A public meeting will be held this week, giving the businesses in Whitehaven to have their say on plans to allocate a site near them for potential use as a Gypsy and Traveller site.
Copeland Council is required by law when producing the Local Plan to meet the needs of all residents and communities.
This includes allocating a site in the region for potential use as permanent Gypsy and Traveller accommodation. The authority looked at land at Greenbank and Hensingham.
In July, it dropped the Greenbank site and launched a consultation on the intention to select land at Sneckyeat Industrial Estate in Hensingham. Both sites were the subject of a petition objecting to the plan.
The land, between Cumbria Sports Academy and the industrial estate, while earmarked in the authority’s Local Plan, would only become a Gypsy and Traveller site if a developer took it on. Copeland Council would not create the site.
Whitehaven Town Council member Edwin Dinsdale has organised a public meeting at Cumbria Sports Academy in Whitehaven on Thursday at 6.30pm.
Coun Dinsdale said the businesses and community groups have been invited because they will share a boundary with the site.
“Having spoken to the business community, Mr Dinsdale said: “I get the feeling that they feel at a loose end with this, who do you got to?”
He said that concerns include the cost to the taxpayer of preparing the land for development and safety as it is a former landfill site.
“They were apparently going to move the allotments at Sneckyeat a number of years ago but the soil samples that came back were apparently full of metals.”
But Copeland Council’s portfolio holder for strategic planning, Andy Pratt, said: “An earlier consultation, plus other evidence, helped us identify Sneckyeat in Hensingham as the most suitable site.
“We must now conduct another round of consultation on that site. All the responses will be passed to an independent planning inspector who will consider them, along with the rest of the Local Plan, during a ‘public examination.’
“The inspector will then say if our Local Plan is sound, or if it needs further changes before we adopt it.
“It’s important to make clear that if we allocate land, it is then up to a developer to buy the land and apply for planning permission to develop it. If this happens, the proposal will be subject to the full planning application process.”
