HUNDREDS of furious residents demanded that councillors reconsider ‘shambolic’ plans to place Gypsy and Traveller sites in their areas.

Last Wednesday, more than 300 people packed into the Armstrong Room at Cheshire West and Chester Council HQ as council executives considered passing a report for five new sites in Cheshire.

Chaos erupted as outraged residents living close to the proposed sites in Bumpers Lane, Chester and Oakwood Farm, Saughall shouted and heckled, slating the process as a ‘disgusting shambles’ and a ‘disgrace’, with police attending to help calm the crowds while one group staged a walkout in protest.

Residents shouted down councillors comments as ‘waffle’, saying they had ‘abandoned taxpayers and settled communities’ and slated the lack of public consultation.

Plans to erect a transit site, including 15 pitches on Green Belt land in Oakwood Farm, Saughall, met the greatest opposition, with residents saying the pitches would ‘destroy the landscape and character of the Green Belt and their community’.

Despite more than two hours of lengthy arguments and debate, executive members voted to note the consultation document, by Ekosgen, allowing the proposed council-owned sites in Oakwood Farm, Saughall; Bumpers Lane, off Sealand Road; Rossfield Road, Ellesmere Port; Buildwas Road, Neston; Blakeden Lane/Browning Way, Winsford; and Road One, Winsford, to go through the planning process.

Saughall and Mollington councillor Brian Crowe said the very idea of considering the land for the pitches contradicted the consultants report which discounted all Green Belt sites due to their protected status.

“The demand for these pitches is like a piece of string, it is as long or as short as you want to make it,” said Cllr Crowe.

“I am informed that we already have at least 90 caravans on sites with temporary planning permission due to expire in around the next two years. These pitches are across Helsby, Dunham-on-the-Hill, Elton and Mickle Trafford.

“So in two years time we know that these new council sites will be full and have waiting lists.

“This will be a never-ending cycle, will this mean that in two years time we will be back here again with councillors looking for another two, three or four million pounds’ worth of taxpayers’ money to expand the sites, money which should be used on elderly people and children’s services?”

One resident slated the system as ‘undemocratic’ and said: “We only heard about these sites last week and yet you are planning to vote on a decision which will affect us for years tonight.”

Anger erupted as one resident said that the pitches would cost at least £2m of tax payers’ money to develop, with one resident saying that a transit site would see Travellers only stay for 14 days on the land in Saughall.

The resident said: “We do not have to provide a transit site. You are asking to provide facilities for people who are passing through our region, we ought to be looking after our old and young people, not people who do not even live in this area.”

Accusations of incompetence were directed at councillors for failing to identify Oakwood Farm as a Green Belt site, incorrectly deeming it a Brown Belt site.

Officers and councillors also faced criticism after failing to notice that the site in Neston was already under a ‘gentleman’s agreement’ for expansion of local businesses and would have a detrimental impact on local trade if a site was developed there.

Cllr Herbert Manley, executive member for prosperity, admitted mistakes had been made, with consultation not being carried out as transparently as it should have been.

“We need to take these pitches forward into the planning process, but we need to do some work before we get there,” he said.

“We are at the very start of this process and there will be considerable consultation.”

At the end of the meeting the executive noted the report, which originally saw more than 1,300 sites shortlisted to 299 for councillors to consider as potential sites.