Council votes to focus on Traveller 'crisis'

CLEAR DIVIDE IN PROGRESSIVE ALLIANCE ON LOCAL AUTHORITY

- By EDDIE BISKNELL Local democracy reporter

A DERBYSHIRE council has opted not to scrap further action on two temporary Traveller sites in favour of tackling an ongoing “crisis” following a clear split in the leading group.

At a Derbyshire Dales District Council meeting, councillors were split on whether to pause further action on temporary Traveller sites at Matlock Bath train station and land next to the cemetery in New Road, Middleton-by-Wirks-worth.

Neither of those sites have ever been put forward as permanent Traveller sites.

Councillors had been due to pause any further action on those two sites, which had been put forward by the council last December as a temporary plots, to focus on the hunt for a permanent sites, after a rethink from the leading Lib Dem-led Progressive Alliance.

This follows one of the four sites, at Matlock train station, being approved, and another at Old Station Close, Rowsley, being refused, at the authority's planning committee.

However, this month's contentious and raucous meeting saw councillors across all political parties - including within the Progressive Alliance - disagree on next steps.

Liberal Democrat councillors, backed by Labour councillors, Bob Butcher and Andy Nash, voted not to pause action on the Matlock Bath and Middleton-by-Wirksworth sites but instead to organise an extraordinary meeting to discuss the ongoing issues with a Traveller site in Ashbourne.

At that meeting, a date for which has not yet been detailed, council-lors could also bring forward ideas for temporary Traveller sites to be adopted or disregarded.