‘Accommodating gypsies is never easy and never popular, but we have to provide for them’

The event happened on Monday evening at Tring’s Victoria Hall after a previous meeting was attended by so many people that a larger building had to be found.

Representatives from Dacorum Borough Council – which drew up the proposal as part of its core strategy for development until 2031, Tring Town Council and Herts County Council were there.

They discussed the plan to develop green belt land between Aylesbury Way and Icknield Way – a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty on the edge of the town. It is owned by CALA Homes.

But Samantha Davis, from Hands Off Tring’s Green Belt (HOTGB), said not enough brownfield sites have been considered as a way of meeting the borough’s housing targets.

A government ruling says that building on the green belt should be a ‘last resort,’ she added.

The mum-of-two, of Christchurch Road, Tring, said: “They really did evade the whole green belt question, if I am honest. They did not really want to talk about it.

“It was kind of like: ‘We are going to do it because it’s the easy option and we have got 200 houses and that’s a nice big piece for Dacorum.’

“We do not feel really like we have been listened to or heard. They have decided that’s the plan and that’s the road they are going to go down and that’s it.

“But the fight is not over. This was just stage one.”

A planning application for the development will follow before anything happens and people will have another chance to speak out then, she added.

James Doe, the borough council’s assistant director of planning, development and regeneration, was at Monday’s meeting.

He said: “Accommodating a gypsy/traveller site in the planning process is never easy and never popular – except with the travellers themselves.

“But the borough council has to stand above that and look at the whole picture.

“There will be local concerns and may even be concerns from the developer, but we have to provide for this need and do it in the best way.”

Mr Doe said that in the last 10 to 15 years, about 90 to 95% of new homes have been built on brownfield sites – but these are running out.

He said Dacorum is also running out of burial space, which the expansion of Tring Cemetery as part of the development would help provide for.

He said the expansion of the industrial estate – also part of the scheme – would provide new jobs, and if gypsy pitches are not provided, unauthorised camps could spring up.

He added that building on the green belt would always be ‘controversial’, sparing concerns about extra traffic, and places at GP surgeries and schools.

> But people can still help shape the plans by taking part in a consultation by submitting their opinions at consult.dacorum.gov.uk/portal before 5.15pm tomorrow.