We have been made aware that Warwickshire County Council are in the process of identifying sites to be made available for the travellers' community. Of course, the Council has a legal duty to do this. However, great care has to be taken in deciding on the most suitable sites and hence the consultation process in which the Council is now engaged. I am sending this e-mail to you as I believe that you are in a position to influence the decision which is finally reached.

The site over which I feel most concern, and I believe this concern is shared by many living on the estates bordering the Hampton Road, concerns the proposal to locate one of these sites on the Hampton Road. I personally would have no objection to a small site for travellers being set up here. They have every right to live comfortably as I do. However, recent developments at Meriden which have attracted national media attention do ring alarm bells when such developments are proposed. A small site on the Hampton Road is very likely to quickly develop into a much larger site, probably extending all the way from the Racecourse to the by-pass. This expansion would take place from the established nucleus of a legal site across ground where planning permission had not been granted. Events at Meriden show that some in the traveller community are quite prepared to work in this way and apply for retrospective planning permission. While 'retrospective planning permission' is an oxymoron which should not be countenanced, it does seem that this is sometimes granted. Events at Meriden indicate that the process of law by which such developments are reversed seem unduly slow and probably only succeeded in this case as a result of a determined and prolonged campaign by Meriden residents.

I would therefore suggest that a small traveller site on the Hampton Road should only be permitted to go ahead provided absolute cast iron guarantees can be provided that it should not be able to extend. The fact that any extension would be breaking the law is not a guarantee that this would not take place as other developments of this type have indicated. Would it not be better to concentrate on sites which are not close to residential property in seeking to find suitable locations for travellers' sites? It would appear that such sites do exist off the Kenilworth by-pass.