The political wrangle over the possible use of Hangleton Bottom as a temporary travellers site is getting more heated days before a key meeting.
A Conservative councillor has accused Labour of performing a U-turn now that the party is running the council.
Councillor Dawn Barnett, who represents Hangleton and Knoll on Brighton and Hove City Council, said that Labour voted with the Tories against using the site last October.
She accused Labour of opposing Hangleton Bottom previously for electoral reasons, adding: “Labour have gone back on their word now the election is over.”
She also said that the site was unsuitable because it was so close to the A27 Brighton bypass and link road.
Travellers would either have to come and go using a main road or go through a housing estate which was unsuitable. Travellers’ children would be in danger from traffic.
But Gill Mitchell, the Labour councillor responsible for the environment and transport, said: “Our previous position on Hangleton Bottom was for practical reasons and related to the access and egress on the main road.
“We were concerned about safety, particularly the safety of children.”
If Hangleton Bottom is chosen, these concerns are expected to be addressed.
Councillor Mitchell said: “Now we’re in a different position. The number of unauthorised encampments has increased significantly.”
In 2013-14 there 71 unauthorised encampments. In 2014-15 there were 106. In the first two months of the current financial year there were 30 compared with 15 a year earlier.
At this rate there would be 180 over the year. This did not take into account the effect the imminent closure of the transit site at Horsdean where work is due to start on enlarging the site in July.
The creation of 12 permanent travellers pitches alongside 21 transit pitches would place Brighton and Hove on a par with neighbouring East Sussex County Council and West Sussex County Council.
Unlike East and West Sussex, Brighton and Hove is currently unable to make use of the strongest police powers – known as section 62a powers – because it lacks the facilities.
In the neighbouring areas the police can and do direct travellers to authorised sites under section 62a of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994.
Any travellers who have been directed under section 62a who set up camp elsewhere in the council’s patch can be arrested.
Councillor Mitchell is expected to hold meetings at the earliest opportunity with officers and representatives of Sussex Police to discuss a way forward.
Without a temporary site, however, the council will be in a weaker position.
Councillor Mitchell said: “I just want to find a sensible way through this.
“You do have to find a way to balance the needs of the wider city with those people most impacted.
“I do understand that Councillor Barnett is suggesting other sites and I’d like to thank her for that as she is at least thinking about the need to identify a temporary site.”
Councillor Mitchell said that officers had been asked to review the options but no decision on a site had been made.
She acknowledged though that, in October, when the council last looked at the issue, Hangleton Bottom was the preferred site.
The site was preferred by the previous Green administration.
The opposition Green group has asked the council’s Policy and Resources Committee, which meets on Thursday (11 June), to overturn its previous refusal to use Hangleton Bottom.
A trend emerges… the new Administration begins to find that the previous one had many issues to address which could not be sorted out “just like that”. And, in the next few weeks, there will be the huge matter of the next of four lacerating Budgets. The previous administration brought the draft Budget forward to November but I think the current one will need to make its position clear by August at the latest.
Meanwhile, Tory cllr Mears spent four years in referring to “the previous administration”. Will she now refer to “the previous administration to the previous administration”?
These are lively times ahead for commenters but, for those affected, they will be gruelling
So you’re saying that your legacy is that you were just as useless as everyone else?
Christopher – but wasn’t it your new left-wing leader, Phelim Mac Cafferty, who was in charge of formulating the current Brighton & Hove City Council policy on dealing with travellers which focussed on their special needs and wanted to provide special dispensation to the traveller community which lead to the farce of travellers being moved on for causing a nuisance on public land and then just moving to another location and the futile policing exercise being repeated ad infinitum?
Perhaps if you focussed on the topic of this article, rather than trying to smear others – particularly as very few people from Hangleton and Knole, or North Portslade affected by this article voted for your party.
P.S. I guess congratulations are in order as your didn’t lose your deposit in the recent general election.