There are serious flaws in new proposals designed to stamp out illegal travellers’ camps — that is the conclusion of Hart District Council’s cabinet.

This year, the council has had to deal with a number of groups of travellers setting up illegal sites. Since February there have been reports of 20 camps.

Last Thursday cabinet members responded to a proposed regional strategy to provide safe and legal sites for gipsies, travellers and travelling showpeople.

The South-East England Regional Assembly (SEERA) plan is designed to establish a more even distribution of travellers’ sites across the region — which includes allocating new sites which they hope will stop travellers from setting up their own illegal sites.

The leader of Hart District Council, Cllr Ken Crookes, said the consultation was still in its early days, but that there were flaws in some of the proposals.

“We do have constant issues with travellers’ illegal encroachments.

“If they had transit sites, we wouldn’t have this problem.

“Travellers could live there for a limited period of time rather than, for example, parking in Hart’s car park — and we had them at Calthorpe Park as well.”

Councillors approved a council report which pointed to a number of flaws in SEERA’s proposals.

Councillors told SEERA:

• There is no clear policy on temporary sites, which are needed to prevent illegal sites from being set up.
• Under the plans, Hart will get a disproportionate number of new sites for travelling showpeople.
• It is wrong to include travelling showpeople with gipsies and travellers when forming policy because the council felt they are “very different in nature with different needs and issues”.

In the official response to SEERA’s plan, officers said that the district already had a relatively high proportion of Hampshire’s gipsy and traveller sites — 50% of the county provision.

SEERA wants to put seven new sites in Hart district — which is taking the vast majority of the new sites in north Hampshire, with only two other sites planned for Rushmoor, and Basingstoke and Deane, borough councils’ areas.