Hangleton Bottom ruled out as temporary travellers site

Hangleton Bottom has been ruled out as a possible location for a temporary site for travellers.

Councillor Gill Mitchell said that the site was ruled out at a meeting of the Labour group on Brighton and Hove City Council last week.

Opposition Conservative councillors were concerned that Labour was preparing for a u-turn, having voted against using the land by the A27 Brighton bypass last autumn.

It was the preferred site when the previous Green administration was looking at making temporary arrangements while the site at Horsdean is closed for an upgrade.

But Councillor Mitchell, who chairs the council’s Environment, Transport and Sustainability Committee, said that the reasons for rejecting the site were the same as before – safety.

Access to and from the site at Hangleton Bottom would either have to be from and to a main road or through a housing estate.

Neither was deemed suitable and the risk of children being run over on the bypass or link road was of particular concern.

Councillor Mitchell did not rule other sites being considered although time is running out as Horsdean is due to close imminently. Any plans and subsequent construction would take several months.

She spoke about the issue during a recording of The Vote, the politics and current affairs programme on Latest TV.

She said that at Horsdean work was due to start in July on building a dozen permanent pitches.

When Horsdean reopens in about a year’s time, the reconfigured transit site, in the same location, will have 21 rather than 23 pitches.

Few if any politicians expect the new site to solve the issue of unauthorised camps being set up in parks and public spaces in Brighton and Hove.

But the presence of a site will mean that the council and Sussex Police have more power to move on unauthorised camps more quickly.

Both East Sussex County Council and West Sussex County Council have sites to which travellers can be directed. This has exacerbated the situation in Brighton and Hove.

In an update today the council said that there were five unauthorised camps in Brighton at

• Stanmer Park
• Hollingbury Park
• Wild Park
• Waterhall
• Braypool Lane

This is one fewer than on Friday. The police and council are taking legal steps to regain possession of the land.