PLANS for a permanent Gipsy and traveller site in Newport have been given the go-ahead, despite hundreds of objections over access to the site. 

A 4.78 hectare site on Hartridge Farm Road, in Ringland, will be used by traveller families already living in Newport on illegal or unsuitable sites, after it was approved four votes to three at a meeting of Newport City Council’s planning committee this afternoon.

Floods of objections against the proposal for the council-run site centered around the access to the area, which will be down a narrow road said to be already congested with traffic and parked cars.

This is especially the case, disgruntled parties said, during first thing in the morning and later in mid-afternoon as parents drop off and pick up their children from nearby Llanwern High School and Yn Ysgol Gymraeg Casnewydd.

Speaking against the plans, ward member councillor Emma Corten said: “We need to get this right.

“This site will be there for longer than Friars Walk, it will be there for hundreds of years because this is where people are going to live.”

The site will be made up of 35 pitches and a community centre, and will see an existing road safety centre close.

Independent cllr Chris Evans, whose daughter goes to Llanwern High, said he had personal experience of the problems with parking along Hartridge Farm Road and was concerned this would get worse once the site - which will be the first of its kind run by the council in Newport - is up and running.

“If this was a private developer wanting to build a caravan park I am quite sure we wouldn’t be so eager to accept it,” he said.

Committee member cllr Ken Critchley said that while he was satisfied the application had been well thought through, he also had concerns around the access.

“Everybody won’t be sitting around campfires smoking and talking all day,” he said.

“They have to live and they will be going in and out.”

But cllr Miqdad Al-Nuaimi said the site had been identified as suitable for new homes in Newport’s Local Development Plan, and no issues had been raised when it was presented to a planning inspector. 

“We do have a responsibility to the traveller and Gipsy community,” he said.

“We have to serve all our residents.”

The Stow Hill ward member added: “It makes sense for us to approve this.”
Planning officer Geraint Roberts said that while he recognised there were concerns around the site, he did not feel they were strong enough to block the plan.

“The change, though adverse, would not be sufficiently adverse to be unacceptable to all residents along there,” he said.

Earlier this year the Argus revealed that application costs alone had cost the taxpayer £69,681.98, before the decision was even made.