Council’s pledge over gipsy sites
As posted by: Stephen on brockdish.org.uk

The leaders of a Norfolk council pledged to make their new gipsy and traveller site consultation as transparent as possible yesterday, despite holding part of a public meeting behind closed doors.

Members of South Norfolk Council’s cabinet gave the go-ahead to a new public scrutiny process after publishing a list of nine sites in a bid to meet government guidelines to find 20 authorised encampment pitches.

However, the local authority was forced to exclude members of the public and press for about 20 minutes during the committee hearing yesterday after Murray Gray, leader of the South Norfolk Liberal Democrat group, raised concerns by referring to confidential council papers.

Members of the Conservative-led administration eventually approved a fresh eight-week public consultation, set to run between March 9 and May 5, despite concerns about the district council’s new scoring system for potential gipsy and traveller sites.

It comes after the council went back to the drawing board and reassessed its criteria in December following a wave of public objections and protests.

A new scoring system, which aims to give more weight to the views of immediate neighbours, has put forward nine potential sites along the A11, A47 and A143, from which the council is looking to create three authorised sites with six to eight pitches.

The A143 options are on land south of Scole Road, Brockdish, land north of Old Harleston Road, Earsham, and the coach depot at Old Harleston Road, Earsham, near Bungay.

Full story from the EDP

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