A GIPSY family is applying for planning permission to leave an "unsafe" caravan site and set up home in a Gwent village.

Henry Price said he wants to set up a family home on land they own in Castleton so their children can live a life away from the sewage and danger they say they are currently experiencing at the crowded Rover Way gipsy site in Cardiff.

But residents are preparing to oppose the plan, which is described as a gipsy caravan site in the application.

Local people and a councillor voiced concerns over the proposal for the site, saying they fear it could escalate into an unsightly blot on the community's landscape.

Welsh gipsy Mr Price, 34, who has six children, applied to Newport council for planning permission to set up a mobile home and touring caravan at The Paddocks, Coal Pit Lane, in Castleton, earlier this month.

Mr Price said: "I completely understand people being concerned about a 'gipsy site', but that is not what it is.

"We just want our kids to be safe, which they never will be in Rover Way." Mrs Price, 34, added: "My kids can't bring their friends home from school at the moment because other parents are scared to let them come here - and I don't blame them.

"I don't like a lot of gipsy people myself, but you have to understand there is good and bad everywhere.

"To be able to move would be a dream come true for these kids. "We promise 100 per cent we are not trying to set up a gipsy site. We just want to be treated like normal people."

But councillor for Marshfield Bill Pursey said: "There is a lot of suspicion and worry in the local community about this.

"There are certain areas a site could go but this is not one, and I would be surprised if permission was given."

Alan Shewring, of Ty Newydd Drive, said: "If this was allowed then it could be the thin end of the wedge. You only have to look at what has happened at Rover Way.

"The problems of these camps are well documented. "They are unsightly and when they move on they leave an awful mess behind."

Mr Price needs planning permission to be able to site the mobile home on his land. Newport council is currently in the middle of the consultation process and the application is expected to come before councillors at the end of October or the beginning of November.