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Currant Affairs Concerns over search for new steam fair travellers’ site VILLAGERS are demanding fair play in the search for a temporary site to house gypsies and travellers visiting the Great Dorset Steam Fair. And parish leaders in Tarrant Monkton and Tarrant Launceston have also cried foul after the Press was excluded from a meeting held to discuss alternative sites in other villages. Dorset County Council has used a field on the eastern side of the C25 road, south of Hyde Hill, since 2007, despite calls from councillors on its planning committee for alternative sites to consider. A meeting to discuss 17 possible locations for the camp was hosted by North Dorset District Council last Friday. Invited parish councillors and members of the public attended. Cllr Kate Graeme-Cook, a parish councillor for Monkton and Launceston, said no official consideration had been given to the impact of the traveller camp on local people. “The Steam Fair is the biggest outdoor event in Europe, attracting some 250,000 people. It is totally unacceptable for the impact on the local community not to be included as criteria,” she said. She questioned why her council’s preferred site at Collingwood Corner had been marked down on planning grounds before the county council’s planning committee had ruled on it. And she challenged County Hall officers’ claims that public order legislation could not be enforced if the travellers’ camp was housed on the steam fair site. But Mike Evans, a business manager with Dorset County Council, specialising in issues with travellers, rejected Mrs Graeme-Cook’s arguments. He said the Steam Fair site had not been made available to the council as a location for the travellers’ camp, making the argument about the use of police powers academic. And he argued that the site at Collingwood Corner would extend the Steam Fair’s “footprint”, making it visible to villagers in Pimperne. “Early discussions” with the county council’s planning department had indicated that the Collingwood Corner site would be unlikely to gain permission, he added. Parishes have been asked to submit their preferred site to Mr Evans by March 31. He will present the suggestions to the county council’s cabinet soon after. Back to the list |