Conservative Group Leader Cllr Stephen Moon has notified parish councils in Bedford Borough of a Government consultation on amending the planning rules concerning Gypsies & Traveller sites. The aim of the proposals is to ensure that planning rules are applied fairly to everyone. The proposed changes include:
- Planning applications for permanent sites made by individuals who have ‘given up travelling permanently’ would no longer have their application treated within the context of the Government’s Planning Policy for Traveller Sites. This means that such applications would be treated as though they are an ordinary planning application.
- The Planning Policy for Traveller Sites would be amended to ‘very strictly limit new traveller site development in open countryside’. The Policy would also be altered so that the absence of an up to date five year supply of sites in a local authority area will ‘no longer be a significant material consideration in favour of the grant of temporary permission for sites in these areas’.
- In circumstances where there has been intentional unauthorised occupation of a site this would be ‘be regarded by decision takers as a material consideration that weighs against the grant of permission’ for the site when a subsequent planning application is considered.
Details on how to respond are included in the consultation document which can be accessed by clicking here. The closing date is the 23rd November.