FRODSHAM residents are celebrating after a proposed Gypsy Traveller site was rejected.
However, Vale Royal Borough Council says the incoming Cheshire West and Chester authority may look at other sites in Frodsham in the future.
Council executives rejected the proposed site at a full council meeting last Thursday.
Vale Royal’s head of environmental health and housing, Rupert Adams, said: “The issue still needs dealing with because there is still the shortfall and that decision is going to have to be made by the new authority.
“They may look at alternative locations in Frodsham and Helsby or anywhere in Cheshire West and Chester.”
Weaver Vale MP Mike Hall accused Vale Royal of “wasting a lot of time” by not listening to residents’ concerns from the onset.
He said: “It was never a good site. The owners made it clear they wouldn’t sell the land so why the council proceeded is beyond me.
“If the council had consulted with the Travellers beforehand they could have saved themselves a lot of time and trouble.”
The North Frodsham Residents Association has been campaigning against the Ship Street site for 10 weeks.
Chairman Frank Pennington said: “We are over the moon, out of this world, not just down at Ship Street, it’s the whole of Frodsham.
“In the last 10 weeks we have been talking with the Gypsies and Travellers, even they said this site was too open and too near the motorway and would be affected by noise and pollution. They said there was no way they would go there.
“I have been told that this is the end. I have been assured of that.”
Further investigation will take place into the feasibility of a temporary site for a small number of pitches at New Road (North) in Winsford, a former county council household waste site.
