South Cambs District Council are undertaking a ‘Needs Analysis’ study to determine the number of Pitches they need to provide for now and the future.

This report will guide South Cambs District Council in their approach to additional Sites in South Cambs, which already has the highest number of sites all of the UK’s District councils. This report will open other possible sites in South Cambs to the chance of new planning requests including I believe 2 in Bassingbourn.

What are the feelings in the village?

We heard on Friday 5th August that the landowner has withdrawn the proposal for a traveller site on the A1198 site for which we are very grateful. Confirmation has been received from South Cambridge District Council.

This is very good news and the residents are delighted. However Bassingbourn-cum-Kneesworth needs to remain vigilant as the requirement for gypsy and traveller sites moves along. SCDC can possibly look at other potential sites in the village. This is despite the fact that Cambridgeshire is one of the highest providers of sites in England, with South Cambs providing 57% of the Cambridgeshire sites and Bassingbourn-cum-Kneesworth about 20% of that! The latest Government consultation states that provision should be “fair and not disproportionate”. Additional sites in Bassingbourn-cum-Kneesworth would have a significant impact on the villages infrastructure and services.

We need to track what the new portfolio holder for New Communities at SCDC does and will try to post any information on this site as we receive it. We will also continue to monitor the outcome of the consultation of traveller and gypsy sites by the Department of Local Government and Communities so we are prepared should another site be proposed. We are also tracking the methodology being used by Cambridgeshire CC to assess future demand for sites.

Please continue to comment on the website should you uncover any information.

Thank you to all the residents who have come together to provide a consistent voice and enable our views to be heard and for the help from the Spring Lane Action Group

The Kneesworth Community Group

(email: kneesworthcommunitygroup@gmail.com)

The cost of Evicting 80 Traveller families from the illegal site near Cray’s Hill in Essex has been estimated at £8 million (yes you read correctly, eight million).

Correspondence from South Cambs District Council states that only a small proportion of the land in Kneesworth is required for the Gyspy and Traveller site. But, given the Councils extremely poor track record for handling traveller issues (Smithy Fen, and close to home Mettle Hill), then they may find the site illegally expanding to the whole 11 acres.

And who would be left with the bill – the local tax-payers.

Contrary to earlier media reports, the barracks in Bassingbourn is set to expand, as reported here by the Royston Crow.

The Training regiment currently resident in the barracks will make way for regiments moving to the UK from Germany. This will impact on demand for the schools, as regular army regiments comprise a much higher number of families with school age children.

If the proposed Gyspy and Traveller site in Kneesworth goes ahead, there will be a decrease in the number of places available to Army and the settled community families, as the Dept for Education has reported:

“[Schools] should ‘identify and reserve’ some short-term places in early years settings, with ‘rapid access arrangements for mobile families”

Follow here for more information, school resources will also be affected, as children from Traveller communities are three times more likely to be statemented and require additional assistance in class.

So, less resources and fewer places available in a time of rising demand, thank you South Cambridgeshire District Council.

There was a road traffic accident this morning (22nd July 2011) on the A1198 in Kneesworth, this blocked the north-bound lane for 90 minutes while the police and ambulance service attended. This caused traffic tailbacks to the A505 roundabout.

The location was opposite the Kneesworth House Hospital and by the entrance to the land where the landowner is proposing a  Gypsy and Traveller site. So far in 2011 there have been six accidents along this stretch of road.

This is another example of the unsuitability of this site and the increased hazard this would bring to all users of this stretch of the Old North Road.

On Wednesday 20th July two members of the Kneesworth Community Group are due to meet with Andrew Lansley MP re the proposed Gypsy site.

See here. He has shown active interest in the subject of Gypsy and Travellers sites in this area, including the Spring Lane application and the sites at Meldreth.

In the last post we looked at the number of pitches that were provided on Gypsy and Traveller sites nationally – but what about in the local area?

Within 2 miles of the proposed site in Kneesworth by the A1198, there currently are:

 Travelling Showpeople Sites

• Kneesworth Road, Meldreth 11 pitches
• Kneesworth Road, Meldreth 10 pitches

Gypsy and Travellers Sites

• Whaddon, 14 pitches.
•  Kneesworth Road, Meldreth 3 pitches

So there are 4 sites with a total of 38 pitches within the surrounding area, see the proposed site page for more details on pitches and how that relates to caravans. The stats above show that the community has its ‘fair’ share of sites and to impose any more sites in Kneesworth, Bassingbourn or Meldreth would be ‘unfair’.

Unused Sites

There have been comments on why the disused site on Mettle Hill is not refurbished and used instead of the inappropriate options such as in Kneesworth. The site has been evaluated by the District Council against their current criteria and is not being considered – it is thought that it failed due to lack of accessible services.

Our view is that there is sufficient provision of sites in the local area to meet current and future demand and no further pitches are required, in Kneesworth, Bassingbourn and Meldreth.

The Department for Communities and Local Government published the results for the bi-annual caravan count on the 29th June, and it makes interesting reading. The data can be found here (all the stats referred to below are in Table 1).

When the count was made in January this year, there were 450 private caravans on authorised sites with planning permission in South Cambridgeshire.  We’ll come back to whether this meets demand later – but to highlight a few points about the level of provision in South Cambs compared to other areas:

• Nationally – South Cambs has more caravans than any other comparable authority, the next highest was Doncaster with 336
• Regionally – in the East of England, South Cambs makes up 21% of the total
• Locally – in Cambridgeshire, 57% of caravans are located within the borders of South Cambridgeshire.

Which prompts the question, “when provision is so much further ahead than anywhere else – why are marginal sites such as the one within Kneesworth being considered?”

Coming back to demand, the District Council is presumably looking for sites because their plans and projections indicate that there is, or will be, demand for them. If demand exceeded the current supply, you would expect that it would be met by unauthorised sites without planning permission. But the DCLG figures show there have been no caravans recorded on non-gypsy owned unauthorised sites in the last two years.

Something must be telling the District Council that they need to provide additional sites – but it is certainly not the data being provided by Central Government.

We’ve just finished the first of the leafleting, this time to all the addresses in Kneesworth. This covers information that is included on the website (or soon will be), and is attached to this post for reference.

Kneesworth Community Group – Update No 1

The following is a submission from Royston Town Council (in 2007/8) to the “Land Allocations Issues & Options Paper January 2008″ from North Herts District Council.

http://www.north-herts.gov.uk/gypsies_travellers_la_io_consultation_questions-2.pdf