10:54am Friday 25th April 2008
By Lois Avery
LEADER of North Wiltshire District Council Dick Tonge was forced to call security when a meeting about gypsy and traveller sites got out of hand last night.
The council's executive committee met last night to discuss the controversial issue of providing sites for gypsies in the district.
The meeting was well attended by members of the public and gypsies from the site in Minety who all demanded to know why they had not been informed about the council's plans.
It was revealed on Monday that the council had been given £250,000 by the government to provide suitable sites for travellers.
Over all 24 pitches have to be provided in North Wiltshire for travellers and six sites were identified by estate agents Humberts, who were commissioned to prepare a report.
The potential sites in North Wiltshire included two in Calne, one in Wootton Bassett and up to three in Chippenham.
A flurry of booing and heckling got out of control and Coun Tonge called security threatening to close the meeting. But the crowd calmed when a security man appeared.
Sophie Fearnley-Whittingstall received a round of applause when she asked why the report had been confidential saying residents deserved to know what was planned for land near their homes.
Councillor Alison Bucknall was booed when she responded saying: "I am at a loss to know how we are able to inform every single individual resident in North Wiltshire.
"We are damned if we do and damned if we don't. The report was on the website and it has been in the press."
Speaking on behalf of the gypsy community, one traveller from the site in Minety said: "You are talking about us like we are cattle and like we mean nothing.
"We are disgusted. This is all because you want to move the Minety travellers.
"This is what all the rushing is about. To get us out. We are five years settled."
The Minety gypsies are due to go to appeal in July against the council's decision to evict them within 18 months.
Eventually Councillor Howard Greenman, lead member for housing, offered a U-turn when he suggested the original report be scrapped and the council consult the public before choosing any land.
"The need to provide these sites has been put upon us with some speed and haste," he said.
"The fact that we were under huge time pressures made it all the more worse.
"Having said that I am not comfortable with the report before us this evening.
"We do need to go out to proper public consultation and as a result all the report I see before me this evening is going to be deleted."
Councillors then agreed to reconsider a site in Marlborough Road in Wootton Bassett after it was discounted and to carry out a six-week public consultation.
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