LAND in Pinhoe has been identified as suitable for a gypsy and traveller site by East Devon planners.

Ash Piggery, in the Tithebarn area of Exeter, could accommodate around 15 gypsy and traveller plots.

East Devon planners made the decision when drafting the local plan, a document outlining where housing and employment land should go in the district up to 2040.

The decision by East Devon District Council’s strategic planning committee on the site in Pinhoe recongises the land is suitable for travellers and is not planning permission for a specific scheme.

Several objectors tried to get councillors to reject the site. However, council officers said the authority needed to show it is meeting the needs of gypsies and travellers.

Phil Waitley, chair of the 1st Pinhoe Scout group, located on Langaton Lane directly opposite the land, said around 85 young people used the scout hut, and this would rise to around 200 in the new year.

“During the 1990s and early noughties, we regularly had unwelcome visitors who came from the travellers site on Avocet Lane that is now Sowton Industrial Estate, with our gas bottles being their main target,” he said.

He questioned whether planners would allow such use opposite schools, and suggested the scout hut be given a similar status.

“The scout group will be forced to spend money on additional security that it can ill afford,” he added.

Other objectors highlighted the site’s proximity to the M5 and railway line, suggesting the location for gypsies and travellers could be detrimental to them, and also feared congestion in Langaton Lane, which is a cul-de-sac.

Objector Angie Hurran, chief officer at Broadclyst Parish Council, said: “It is our duty to ensure we are not providing environments that are detrimental to wellbeing by allocating a site that has been deemed unsuitable for typical residential development due to noise levels, as we risk treating this community inequitably, and they deserve the same standards of any other group.”

But council officers noted that existing developments were closer to the M5 than the proposed site, and that because the land is lower than the road, noise levels would be mitigated.

Cllr Mike Howe (Independent, Clyst Valley) raised the prospect of delaying a decision to allow time for the council’s environmental health team to prepare a report, and asked whether East Devon District Council had money to buy the site so that it could manage it.

But strategic planning committee chair Cllr Todd Olive (Liberal Democrat, Whimple and Rockbeare) dismissed concerns about noise given existing developments near the railway line and M5.

“To be brutally honest, I am minded to propose this site for allocation,” he said.

Cllr Paul Hayward (Independent, Axminster) asked if not allocating the site would derail the whole local plan.

Ed Freeman, assistant director of planning strategy, said while other sites had been identified, such as in the Cranbrook expansion area and potentially at a new settlement planned near Farringdon, these were unlikely to become reality soon.

“What makes me nervous is that those options are some years away and we need to show we are phasing provision over the period of the local plan,” he said.

“This site helps meet short-term need, and while we can make our case that we are meeting the needs without it, we have a much stronger case with this site in the mix.”

Planning officer Claire Rodway added that it was her team’s understanding that the site would probably be used by “settled” travelling families.

“There is a gypsy and traveller site at Broadclyst where a small handful of very long-term residents live, yet most people in Broadclyst wouldn’t know it existed,” she said.

“Some of the demand [for Ash Piggery] is because we have some families in the Broasdclyst site that are overcrowded so we think it would occupied by more local families.”

Councillors voted in favour of allocating the site as a gypsy and traveller site but with no formal planning application yet.

Bradley Gerrard