Derbyshire Dales Council submits plans for two temporary traveller sites
The two applications are for the Derwent Way railway station car park in Matlock and the Old Station Close car park in Rowsley.
A Derbyshire council has submitted planning applications for controversial temporary Gypsy and Traveller sites.
Derbyshire Dales District Council has submitted planning applications to itself for two of the four plots councillors agreed should become “temporarily tolerated” Gypsy and Traveller sites.
The two applications are for the Derwent Way railway station car park in Matlock and the Old Station Close car park in Rowsley.
Both would be limited to two years and would cater for four pitches each.
A decision on each application will be made by the district council in the next few months.
This comes three months after councillors voted to adopt the two sites, along with the Matlock Bath railway station coach park and land to the north-west of Middleton by Wirksworth cemetery, at a heated meeting in December.
District councillors had agreed that use of the Matlock Bath site would be limited to the off-peak tourist season, November 1 to February.
Meanwhile, Rowsley and Middleton by Wirksworth would see their sites limited to March 1 to October 31.
A short report filed with the Rowsley application does not make mention of this limitation, other than it would be restricted to two years of use from the date it is occupied.
It says the site is already in use and will be provided with fencing around the perimeter, with acoustic lining, and would be made suitable for four caravan pitch points and parking for six vehicles.
Temporary utility and amenity buildings would also be provided, it says.
The same specifications have been outlined for the Matlock application.
Applications for the Matlock Bath and Middleton by Wirksworth site have not yet appeared on the district council’s online planning system.
The adopted plots were described as the “least worst” sites available to the council out of the sites it owns.
Following a public consultation last year, 762 respondents opposed any allocation of temporary Traveller sites while 689 respondents were in favour of Traveller families being given appropriate sites with associated amenities.
The council has a legal obligation to two homeless Gypsy and Traveller families and has so far, after several years, failed in its duties to provide permanent plots.
In the absence of permanent sites, the council must provide temporary locations on which the families are allowed to stay.
Mass opposition had been raised against the Rowsley site in particular, including by businesses and community organisations which rely on the use of the car park for their customers and clients.
Derbyshire County Council had also opposed its designation due to the perceived impact on a nearby walking and cycling trail – the white peak loop.