Plea over plan for travellers’ site near Oswestry golf course
Monday 16th August 2010, 10:55PM BST.
A family wanting to build a travellers’ site near Oswestry today said they would not be bad neighbours, after a flood of objections from local people.
Michelle Berry says she just wants to provide a nice home for her children, close to her own family.
She and her husband are applying for planning permission for a six pitch caravan site opposite Henlle Golf Club. They have already moved on to the site.
However, the move has brought a flood of objections from local people and from users of the golf course.
The family say that if they had applied for permission before moving on to the land, they believe prejudice would have meant permission would never have been considered.
But Mrs Berry, a Romany gipsy, says without planning permission they cannot get services such as water and electricity on to the site.
“We are not asking for any handouts and are doing this all ourselves. All we want to do is provide somewhere for our family to live. A study carried out in 2007 said there is a serious and urgent need for more sites in the region and that urgent action is required to address the needs,” she said.
Mrs Berry’s family was one of the first to move to the nearby Park Hall site 35 years ago and she has grown up in the area. But the site is now overcrowded and there is a shortage of sites in Shropshire.
“The children go to school here and we want to stay in this area,” she said.
“It we had gone down the proper legal route we would not have got anywhere because of people’s prejudices,” she claimed.
The family has had plans drawn up for a six pitch site, which could accommodate up to 12 caravans.
Shropshire Council will consider the application at a later date.
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She says she wants to provide a nice home for her family, well all she needs to do is buy a house thats all, instead of building a unwanted travellers site.
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people need to stop being so ignorant and just let them stay! just because it’s a caravan and not a brick house does not mean people should discriminate against them! all they are trying to do is provide a good up bringing for their family, and believe it or not, just because they live in a caravan does not mean they are trouble makers! leave them alone thats all i say!
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