NEWPORT council is carrying out yet more consultation on the Gipsy and traveller site issue in the city - weeks before councillors are due to vote on them.

A spokeswoman for the authority confirmed that further work is to take place on a list of three sites proposed by a team of councillors, this time with the Gipsy and Traveller community itself.

Views had been sought from the community during the previous process, which had elicited thousands of responses from the general public.

It follows disquiet at a Labour cabinet meeting last week from some senior councillors over the potential loss that could be incurred if the proposal for a residential site at Hartridge Farm Road came to fruition.

It was hoped the site could be sold, potentially for £5 million, to fund the building of Llanwern High School.

Councillors are meeting on June 4 to consider the site list to include them as part of its local development plan (LDP).

It has also emerged that in private session the Newport cabinet last week asked for councillors be issued more “more detailed information” on legal and human rights implications, and potential costs involved with the provision of the recommended sites, to councillors ahead of that meeting.

An authority spokeswoman says the council has already sought the views of the community throughout the previous process, conducted by a council scrutiny committee.

However she said the city's cabinet has requested “there is further consultation with families prior to council considering the recommendations and in light of short-listed sites being identified."

Councillor Matthew Evans, Tory opposition leader, said he found the move “quite bizarre” and asked whether the move is a “Get Out Of Jail Free card” for the cabinet.

“If you are going to go out to further consultation it shouldn't just be with the Gipsy and traveller community,” Cllr Evans said.

But the accusation was denied by Labour Cllr Paul Cockeram, cabinet member for Social Care and Wellbeing, who said the cabinet just wants to “make sure it’s the right decision”.

“There's lots of implications here. It's not a get out,” he told the Argus.

Emma Corten, Labour backbench councillor for Ringland whose ward includes Hartridge Farm Road, said she is a “little surprised” that further consultation is still being sought at this stage, as she thought the opinions of all parties would have been explored before sites were short-listed.

“At a ward meeting one of the traveller families, who the residential site is proposed to house, stated that they weren't comfortable with being located at the Hartridge Farm Road site due to its openness - I hope their views will be taken fully into account,” she said.

The scrutiny committee shortlisted sites were Hartridge Farm Road, the former Ringland Allotments as a back-up residential site and land at Celtic Way at Marshfield as a transit site.