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Top Dog · Site Moderator Joined: 06 Jun 2007 Posts: 1624 Status:

Robert are you against the sites on the whole in calne or is it just because it is right on your doorstep?

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Local lass · Calnetalk Oracle Joined: 05 Jun 2007 Posts: 2692 Status:

robert wrote
All I suggest is that we see what happens at tonights meeting and what NWDC plan next and then look at how we can mount a campaign to prevent this happening. Leafletting all homes and businesses in the area with properly prepared information would be a useful start. This can be actioned quickly and under a non-political banner as there is more at stake than political brownie points. Anyone know a good and cheap (or even free!) printer?

i would be more than willing to do a leaflet drop.
prehaps some of the local buissness in calne would help out with printing.
this really needs to be stopped .
the councillours need to unite and protect calne .
if you do want any help just pm me.

Robert Baggs · Posted: Fri Apr 25, 2008 8:43 am Post subject:

Top Dog · Site Moderator Joined: 06 Jun 2007 Posts: 1624 Status:

I would agree ,calne is not the place for these sites.
If we can help in anyway on this forum just let me know.
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Top Dog.

Robert Baggs · Posted: Fri Apr 25, 2008 11:07 am Post subject:

Report from the Wiltshire Gazette web-site

http://www.thisiswiltshire.co.uk/...meeting_over_travellers_sites.php

LEADER of North Wiltshire District Council Dick Tonge was forced to call security when a meeting about gypsy and traveller sites got out of hand last night.
The council's executive committee met last night to discuss the controversial issue of providing sites for gypsies in the district.
The meeting was well attended by members of the public and gypsies from the site in Minety who all demanded to know why they had not been informed about the council's plans.
It was revealed on Monday that the council had been given £250,000 by the government to provide suitable sites for travellers.
Over all 24 pitches have to be provided in North Wiltshire for travellers and six sites were identified by estate agents Humberts, who were commissioned to prepare a report.
The potential sites in North Wiltshire included two in Calne, one in Wootton Bassett and up to three in Chippenham.
A flurry of booing and heckling got out of control and Coun Tonge called security threatening to close the meeting. But the crowd calmed when a security man appeared.
Sophie Fearnley-Whittingstall received a round of applause when she asked why the report had been confidential saying residents deserved to know what was planned for land near their homes.
Councillor Alison Bucknall was booed when she responded saying: "I am at a loss to know how we are able to inform every single individual resident in North Wiltshire.
"We are damned if we do and damned if we don't. The report was on the website and it has been in the press."
Speaking on behalf of the gypsy community, one traveller from the site in Minety said: "You are talking about us like we are cattle and like we mean nothing.
"We are disgusted. This is all because you want to move the Minety travellers.
"This is what all the rushing is about. To get us out. We are five years settled."
The Minety gypsies are due to go to appeal in July against the council's decision to evict them within 18 months.
Eventually Councillor Howard Greenman, lead member for housing, offered a U-turn when he suggested the original report be scrapped and the council consult the public before choosing any land.
"The need to provide these sites has been put upon us with some speed and haste," he said.
"The fact that we were under huge time pressures made it all the more worse.
"Having said that I am not comfortable with the report before us this evening.
"We do need to go out to proper public consultation and as a result all the report I see before me this evening is going to be deleted."
Councillors then agreed to reconsider a site in Marlborough Road in Wootton Bassett after it was discounted and to carry out a six-week public consultation.
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Peter Dolman · Posted: Fri Apr 25, 2008 6:47 pm Post subject:

The action by the District Council in trying to push through the decision on where to site the travellers site is reprehensible. There has been not public consultation and it would appear from the debate reported by Robert Baggs that Councillor Bucknall did not want us to have a say.

We as residents of Calne have a legal right to be involved in any decision about where to put this site. If the District Council do not carry out consultation, then we (local residents) would have the right to challenge the decision in court.

There is a problem in that District Councils & County Councils are legally required to provide these sites but everyone objects to having them in their "back yard".

I object to the Oxford Road site on 2 points.
Firstly this site is on a major road into Calne and would give visitors a poor 1st impression of the town. The proposed access of the roundabout would create a traffic hazard.

Secondly the whole of the land from the bypass roundabout to the Bug & Spider has been purchased and is likely to be subject to a planning application. This is under discussion for many years and would be prefered to a travellers site.

I cannot support this proposal although I am sympathetic for the need of authorised traveller sites.

Top Dog · Site Moderator Joined: 06 Jun 2007 Posts: 1624 Status:

for leaflets posters.
http://www.digiprintchippenham.co.uk/
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Top Dog.

GTB · Posted: Fri Apr 25, 2008 7:12 pm Post subject:

A lot of people see travellers as nothing more than overly mobile social vermin who do nothing for society but steal and cheat. I have had dealings with some of their clan in the past few years where my builders yard and the main yard (which belongs to a landlord) has been targeted many times by these people who have stolen countless litres of diesal and stolen every vehicle my Landlord owned - three lorries and a Transit tipper plus other valuable tools. They stole a crane lorry from the yard, removed the crane and dumped the lorry across the road from their camp in the North of Wiltshire. This has happened twice now where the vehicle has been recovered from this camp but the police are powerless to act because of lack of eveidence because nobody would make a statement. They are so sure of themselves that they won't get caught they blatantly leave these vehicles where they like after they have stripped them of want they need.

Do Calne really want these sort of people to move in next to them - not that they are getting a choice, so it seems. I would have thought that the managers of the local business' that live near to the proposed site would have liked the option of a democratic vote because their insurance premiums will surely rise if this lot move in.

Hoping to integrate these sort of people into civilised society where they pay taxes and keep their noses clean is the same level of hope as trying to win the lottery. The dishonesty of them is so ingrained that it would take several generations to wash it out of them. I know that we have to do something towards rehabilitating them but short of putting them in chains I am at a loss.
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kathy27 · Posted: Fri Apr 25, 2008 8:22 pm Post subject:

:? is it me having a blonde moment! isnt the whole point of being a gypsy or traveller, that you opt out of the rat-run, hence no council tax or such like ......why do they want to settle anywhere and are they going to be paying council tax??

rosco · Posted: Fri Apr 25, 2008 10:43 pm Post subject: