AN ANGRY councillor is calling for one of the proposed Bournemouth Traveller sites to be formally withdrawn because the land is not owned by the local authority.
Throop and Muscliff ward councillor Ron Whittaker said the Erlin Farm site should be removed from the list because it is completely unsuitable and incorrectly shown on consultation documents as being in council ownership.
More than 1,800 people signed petitions demanding that proposals for travellers’ sites near their homes and businesses should be scrapped.
Four sites in Bournemouth – three of them on green belt land – have been earmarked as possible sites following a county-wide review.
Three years ago nine councils in Dorset clubbed together to hire consultants Baker Associates to identify possible sites; an exercise which is costing council taxpayers £244,000.
Three of Bournemouth’s proposed sites are at Throop and Muscliff while the other fourth is near the Lansdowne.
Cllr Whittaker told the Daily Echo: “Erlin Farm should never have been included. It floods, it is grade one agricultural land, no footways can be constructed there and now we finally have confirmation that it is not in council ownership.”
Phil Robinson, planning policy manager at the council, said: “Baker’s Associates are still in the consultation period and it would be pre-emptive to suggest that this, or any of the other sites, should be withdrawn at this stage.
“The decision on which sites are going forward to the preferred option stage will be made by Baker’s Associates in the late spring or early summer and at that time, elected members will be able to decide which, if any, of the sites they wish to take forward.”
The consultation on all sites will continue until February 10.
Details of how to comment on the proposals are available on all the local councils’ websites.
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