TRAVELLERS' sites are a contentious issue and the very words are enough to set hackles rising. Any debate on the subject tends, very quickly, to get enmeshed in controversy, forthright opinions and ill-founded rumour.
Wherever a suggested site springs up there is often tension between two communities – local residents complain of loud noise and increased crime (and worry about the value of their property) while the travellers argue they are simply trying to put do
wn roots. Compromise between the two camps is rarely easy to find.
So far there has been little public reaction to the news that a tentative start has been made to the establishment of a travellers' site at St Giles Road – but that is perhaps because the proposed development is at a very early stage. Calderdale Council has been contacted by a private landowner who appears keen to test the likelihood of planning permission being granted for a travellers' site and local councillors are mobilising opinion.
Perhaps because of the difficult nature of the subject, local authorities have historically shied away from addressing the needs of travellers and Calderdale Council is one authority that stands guilty of dragging its feet. New legislation now requires councils to take the issue seriously and to work to provide for more travellers' sites within local development plans.
The problem is – where? It seems unlikely the residents of St Giles Road, or indeed any other road, would welcome the arrival of a group of travellers' vans with open arms. How determined this landowner will be to push ahead with his plans, probably in the face of public opinion, remains to be seen but it is unlikely this issue is going to go away quietly.
