Villagers set to renew fight over bigger airfield site for travellers

The move means that objectors, who have claimed that the proposal will swamp the small village, will once again have to register their comments and objections to the proposal.

John Taylor, who runs nearby Milford Caravan Park, said after hearing that the plans were being resubmitted: “People are going to be angry.

“It’s causing anger locally because its going to be a large site in a small village – it’s just not going to fit in.”

Mr Taylor’s site offers accommodation for travellers and gipsies but he said he was opposed to the plans because he did not believe travellers and gipsies wanted to live on the site.

Yesterday Selby District Council said the decision to resubmit the application for Burn Airfield would enable the council to widen the range of people consulted as part of the planning application process.

Burn was one of 12 major airfields operating in the county during the Second World War, and was used as a base for Halifax bombers to launch raids against Germany’s largest cities, including one in which RAF pilot Cyril Barton earned a posthumously-awarded Victoria Cross

The district council is looking to create 15 new pitches on Burn Airfield as part of a strategy to accommodate travellers.

Another part of the airfield already provides 15 pitches, although Burn Parish Council has previously stressed the travellers who already live there are “very well integrated” and have not caused any problems.

Earlier this year, the parish council recorded a unanimous vote of no confidence following an impassioned debate at a meeting in the village’s methodist chapel, which was attended by members of an existing travellers site at the airfield. The parish council’s chairman, Coun Chris Phillipson, said the district authority had “categorically promised” the airfield would not be considered for a new site.

He accused the council of attempting to “steamroller” the proposals through before a long-term development blueprint for the Selby district, called the Local Plan, is adopted.

The land is owned by the Homes and Communities Agency but the land is leased to a third party. The council said yesterday that in order to give the lessee time to review the planning application and time to respond the application needed to be resubmitted. The old application will be withdrawn.

The move means that comments will not be automatically transferred but anyone who 
has made a comment on the previous application will be able to resubmit their support or objection against the revised application.

Eileen Scothern, Access Selby business manager, said yesterday: “It’s quite common in the planning process to resubmit an application when new information comes to light.

“We have a duty to ensure the planning process is completed in full and all the necessary consultees have been contacted and given time to comment.

“It also gives previous responders another opportunity to have their say and resubmit their comments.”

The district council says it has a legal duty to identify a five-year supply of pitches for the travelling community and recently went through a process of identifying potential sites across the district.

From this process, a task force of the authority’s policy review committee identified Burn airfield as a possible location for some of the proposed development.

The resubmitted planning
application will carry a new planning reference code: 2013/0565/FUL.

The details are expected to be posted on the council’s website from Friday.

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