Letter from Brandon Lewis MP confirming call in of Cottingley Springs

 I received news this week that the controversial Cottingley Springs Travellers site expansion plan is to be referred to the Secretary of State Eric Pickles - should Labour Leeds City Council decide to grant planning permission.

This is good news and follows on from the meeting I had with Eric Pickles last week to voice our concerns about this inappropriate development in the greenbelt. The letter also confirms the Governments clear policy intent not to allow development of Travellers sites in the greenbelt and follows on from a Ministerial Statement in June which confirmed that unmet need for Travellers sites doesn not constitute very special reasons to allow such development in the greenbelt.

The Comrades position on this application is a puzzle. Despite their public "solidarity" supporting Travellers rights - they seem less keen when it comes to putting this empty rhetoric into practise. A small Travellers site application in Sandon Mount in Hunslet is a good example of this gross hypocrisy. The site - a nailed on approval as it satisfies all the policy tests - clear to local facilities such as schools/shops, good public transport/ not isolated form other communities/ was objected to by all three Labour Councillors for the Ward along with the local Labour MP. As a result of this the application has been buried in the Planning Department for 10 months while the Comrades attempt to agree the Cottingley Spring Expansion Plan which would allow them to refuse the application on the basis of the additional 12 pitches! So much for working class solidarity which is clearly only veneer thick with many of the Comrades.

My view is this application is doomed. If Labour Leeds City Council manages to wangle it through by using  their majority on the Planning Committee then the Secretary of State will  - if he is consistent with these things - refuse it at that point.

The alternative is to adopt the policy agreed by the Comrades at a recent Executive Board meeting. Smaller family run sites on previously developed brownfield land. We have several around Morley - such as on Nepshaw Lane, Howden Clough Road and Whitehall Road - along with Cottingley Springs. Other areas need to offer up similar sites. If all the other 31 wards in Leeds offered just one small family sites for a couple of pitches then the Travellers site problem - and the blight of unauthorised Travellers sites - would be resolved. It requires Labour Councillors to practise what they preach and to put their so called socialist principles into real and tangible action.

Don't hold your breath!