Derbyshire council accused of “Traveller site hokey cokey” with potential plots being brought “in, out and being shuffled all about”

The jibe came in a Derbyshire Dales District Council meeting last night (September 28), at which the authority had been due to debate plans for temporary Traveller sites.

That meeting featured concern about “disgusting” language being used to discuss Travellers with more respect needed and potential closed-door discussions to avoid public offence.

However, at the 11th hour, the authority – run by a “progressive alliance” of Lib Dems, Labour and Greens – postponed plans to assign temporary sites in Ashbourne and Rowsley and put 27 sites blocked by the previous Conservative administration back on the table.

At the meeting, the council agreed to set aside a combined £58,000 to assess and enter into a two-year contract to manage and rent a site known as the Woodyard, off the A6 near Cromford in Homesford, as a Traveller site.

This comes after the authority approved its use as an eight-pitch site earlier this month.

John Youatt, on behalf of the Woodyard owners, asked the council to agree a fee for the site and buy it or face it being sold to someone else and being taken off the table.

He said urgent assistance was needed to “avoid a humanitarian disaster” for the two homeless Traveller families which the council has a legal obligation to accommodate.

Cllr Richard Walsh, a member of Crich Parish Council representing Whatstandwell, near the Homesford site, said: “It seems to me that the progressive alliance is actually hell-bent on filling every nook and cranny in the Derbyshire Dales with Gypsy and Traveller sites, and we have a frenetic search for sites, including appointing a land agent.

“I really must congratulate the ruling progressive alliance on this group for the invention of a new dance, which is called the Traveller site hokey cokey.

“Sites are in, sites are out, in they come, out they go, shuffle them all about. I have never seen anything like it.”

Denise Brown, an Ashbourne resident, said that the “political chess” needed to stop with the 27 sites which had been disregarded being “no more safe or appropriate” than before.

She said: “Siting Travellers in the middle of residential areas is not acceptable. Firstly, the law-abiding, tax-paying residents are resentful for being launched into the middle of Traveller life and secondly the Travellers will have no privacy to conduct their own way of life in their own style.

“Ashbourne does not have anywhere that will be tolerated by residents or that is suitable for Travellers.”

Stephen Walton, a Homesford resident, called the Woodyard site “a black hole for money to be poured into, money you can ill-afford to squander”.

He said “NIMBYs (not in my back yard)” were stopping progress, saying: “This nettle has to be grasped, local sensitivities overruled and politics put aside to settle this problem once and for all. If not you will be stuck with a very expensive white elephant in the middle of nowhere – a monument of folly for Derbyshire Dales District Council ratepayers to visit in their times of despair.”

Dr Siobhan Spencer, on behalf of the Derbyshire Gypsy Liaison Group, said the landowners of the Woodyard would not wait for the council to decide what it wants to do and the plot “could be sold to Travellers from outside the Dales”, asking the council to put a deposit down on the site.

Cllr Victoria Friend, chair of Rowsley Parish Council, opposed a plan to name the Old Station Close car park in the village as a temporary Traveller site – one of the decisions postponed by the council, subject to consultation.

She said the site had been used twice by Traveller families but only ever by the order of the council, not by choice, dubbing it unsuitable due to its vicinity to businesses and as the only car park in the village.

Cllr Friend said: “Don’t put Travellers on Old Station Close in Rowsley. It makes no sense for anyone. Stop going around in circles reversing decisions that were made for good reason.”

Richard Bean, director of Natural Stone Sales, close to the Old Station Close car park, said visitors stopped attending businesses when the plot had last been used as a Traveller site, citing trees being cut down, large fires and verbal abuse, along with “human muck”.

George Ashbrook, managing director of Ashbrook Roofing, based in Harrison Way, near Matlock, said there was concern that a potential plot near the business could again be considered as a temporary Traveller site.

This was due to the consistent use of lorries, vans and forklifts in the area, along with the nearby River Derwent and A6, saying the lack of process felt “underhand”.

Cllr Caroline Cooper, a member of Ashbourne Town Council, said the potential use of the Fishpond Meadow overspill car park was “inappropriate” “in a town that has just won Levelling Up funding to build itself to a higher standard”.

She said: “Yes we know they need somewhere to go but I’d suggest Ashbourne is not that place.

“Ashbourne has had more than its fair share and it is no longer appropriate for us to take them.

“Our car parks are overflowing, we are losing our green spaces to housebuilding, hundreds of man hours [have been spent] to improve the town to just decide in 10 minutes that Ashbourne can once again become the dumping ground for Derbyshire Dales District Council to put their unwanted.”

Cllr Steve Flitter, leader of the council, said: “If we get it wrong, we will admit it. We won’t sit back and paper over the cracks like the last administration did.

“Many of these sites have good reasons to be discounted and nobody is saying that any of these sites will be counted in the future.”

Cllr Marilyn Franks, progressive alliance lead member on the Traveller working group, said the current situation was “far from ideal”, saying: “I’m not saying Matlock Bath wouldn’t be appropriate again over a short period of time when it isn’t busy, but we need alternatives. Matlock Bath cannot be used for a long time like Matlock station.

“If we can legally just go and spend money (on the Woodyard) I would be saying go ahead and do it now. We need to do due diligence.”

Cllr Laura Mellstrom said: “The problem we are facing is having nothing to look at. There have been strenuous efforts over 10 months to find new sites and no new alternative sites have come forward.

“We are in the situation of acknowledging that none of those sites are suitable and so we have to look for the least unsuitable option.

“In the opinion of the majority of the working group, Matlock Bath station is not the least worst option. It is one of the worst options in the long term, it may have been suitable for the short term to January this year.”

Cllr Mark Wakeman said: “If Matlock Bath is no good, nothing is”, indicating that it had lighting and was a hardstanding surface.

Cllr Peter Slack said there were rats running along the River Derwent near the Matlock Bath station car park site, currently home to one homeless family, who identify as Romani Gypsy.

He said the Temple car park in Matlock Bath could be a good temporary site, with the family having stayed there before.

Cllr David Hughes asked for this suggestion to be “struck from the minutes” so as not to cause concern.

Cllr Stuart Lees said: “Nothing has changed with these sites, we are going back in time. We may as well go round all the local estate agents to find a suitable piece of land, all the villages and all the towns, and get a list of possible pieces of land.”

Cllr Slack also said the Watery Lane site in Ashbourne, proposed by the council several years ago and taken off the table due to its vicinity to potential county council bypass plans around the town, should be reconsidered.

He said it was likely there would be a change in administration at the next county council elections and the site could be available again.

Cllr Martin Burfoot said: “They have been encamped on Matlock and Matlock Bath station car parks for far longer than is acceptable. Matlock and Matlock Bath members of this council have borne the brunt of complaints from residents, visitors and businesses for far too long.”

Cllr Peter Dobbs said the council needs to find “two least worst sites” and a third “in case of disaster” and should pursue quick progress at Homesford.

Cllr Nick Whitehead said: “Matlock Bath has had enough and I am sure the family have had enough of being dumped in a car park that is unsuitable to live in.

“The rest of the community are significantly impacted, not just in terms of their actions with the family in the car park and the mess and the excrement and the noise, constant whir of generators, leaf blowing to 11pm at night, people shouting.

“We live in a gorge so any sound reverberates off the walls of the gorge and amplifies the noise. How this council ever thought that Matlock Bath was a suitable location even for a temporary basis is beyond me.

“The disproportionate impact on our community due to the lack of decisions from this council is completely unfair. It is about time that the rest of the district started to take their fair share of this responsibility.”

He claimed the loss of the Matlock Bath coach park had cost the village £100,000 and the council £10,000 in business usage and car park and toilet fees.

Cllr Geoff Bond said he agreed with the “hokey cokey” assessment.

He said: “A lot of the furore that has been caused is because these sites were out and then they were back in and now they are postponed rather than out.

“Let’s get rid of sites that are clearly unsuitable. Get rid of them permanently.”

Cllr Peter O’Brien said: “I don’t really like the phrase ‘least worst’. We are not looking for the least worst site, we are looking for the best site. If you regard Travellers as aliens they will behave like aliens. Travellers are colleagues in our human family and so we need to respect them. They live differently but a lot of us have lived differently at different times in our lives and we need to respect their choices.”

Cllr Flitter said: “We must go down every avenue to find a solution but we must not keep going back and back to look at faults.

“It should be on the district as a whole to share responsibility and not on one particular place

“Matlock Bath has had enough and we have got to solve that problem and the only way we can do that is by being grown up and acting accordingly.”

Cllr Wakeman said more respect was needed for the families, saying: “I think in future if we are going to talk about them like we have been doing tonight, let’s do it behind closed doors, without the camera, because I think it is disgusting.”