Beausale Gypsies admit green belt site is wrong, but insist on a right to stay

Warwick District Council opened the inquiry on Tuesday so a Government-appointed inspector can determine whether the group of Romany Gypsies should be allowed to stay at the site off Kites Nest Lane.

The 13 families moved their caravans on to the land during a bank holiday weekend in May last year and were later refused retrospective planning permission to do so.

They were also subjected to a High Court order barring them from carrying out further developments at the site, but have appealed against both decisions.

Speaking at the opening of the inquiry at Leamington town hall, inspector Antony Fussey said: “The appellants accept that the development is inappropriate in the greenbelt and that there is harm to the openness of the greenbelt.

“The main issues are whether the harm or inappropriateness is clearly outweighed by the other considerations so that they amount to the very special circumstances which are necessary to justify the development.”

Mr Fussey asked representatives for both parties to read out opening statements, beginning with Hugh Richards, speaking for the council.

He told the inquiry that a package requesting planning permission was delivered to the council late on the Friday of the weekend the Gypsies moved on to the site, adding: “The timing and manner of the delivery must have been quite deliberate to coincide with the beginning of the bank holiday weekend. This was a cynical attempt to side-step the planning laws.”

Mr Richards pointed out that the group will have lived at the site for two years by the time the inquiry reaches its conclusion and said: “Permission for Gypsy sites must be granted where demand is reflected. It’s not agreed that they should be on greenbelt land. Twenty-five per cent of the land in Warwick district is not greenbelt.”

Speaking for the residents’ group Friends of the Greenbelt (Frog), which has been campaigning against the settlement, Jack Smyth said: “The manner in which the appellant has behaved has been discourteous and disrespectful.

“In 13 witness statements provided, there is not a single one from the owners of the site. Their silence speaks volumes.”

He told the inquiry the group had ignored requests by Frog for a ground survey to be carried out and questioned: “What was the difficulty in allowing surveyors perhaps half an hour to do some soil tests at a time convenient to the appellants? It’s because they know or suspect such tests, if carried out, would prove harmful to their case.

“The impression one forms is that of a party craftily seeking to shape the inquiry to their advantage.”

Michael Rudd, representing the gypsies, said: “The appellant has shown very special circumstances exist. It is not necessary for them to show that any one of these circumstances is special, very special or exceptional.”

He said a landscaping scheme would overcome concerns about the visual aspect of the site and defended the group’s lack of response to the request for a ground survey.

He said: “Given the conduct of the local residents in this appeal, there is always friction in these matters and the appellants felt they were justified in the way they behaved.”

Mr Rudd called his first witness, Jeremy Hurlstone, highways and development expert and managing director of the Hurlstone Partnership, who, after examining the case, said that as far as traffic flow was concerned, the site poses no problems and is acceptable as it is.

The inquiry has continued throughout the week and is expected to end on Monday or Tuesday. An outcome will be determined in April.