Plans lodged for new traveller site in Caego

Plans have been lodged which could see a new traveller site created in a village in Wrexham.

The application seeks permission to establish four pitches on land at Stryt y Bydden in Caego, which borders New Broughton.

According to planning documents put forward to Wrexham Council, the site previously served as a railway siding on the old Moss Valley Line.

The line ran through Caego as part of the Great Western Railways network and the site currently consists of railway ballast which has become overgrown, with fly-tipping also taking place on the land.

The site’s old owner previously began to carry out work on the land without seeking permission from the council.

It led to an injunction being issued in April 2022 and a High Court summons followed shortly after restricting the previous owner from undertaking more work.

The current owner is then said to have bought the land and continued to level the land, installing a fence and planting a hedge.

A retrospective planning application was submitted to the council in relation to that work, but was rejected by planning committee members.

In a planning statement, agents acting on behalf of the applicants said: “The brothers and their families are Irish Travellers who have a need of a permanent site to live.

“The families prefer to live together on one site in order to have a family base and stability.

“Currently they are travelling within Wales stopping at friends and relatives on private sites, often illegally, putting those sites in jeopardy of enforcement action.

“The local councils, Flintshire, Wrexham and Powys all have no facilities for family sites so they have had no option but to purchase there own private site and apply to the council for planning permission.”

“The site in question is tantamount to being a brownfield site as it is previously developed land and used as a siding for rolling railway stock.

“The proposal is to provide four residential pitches including dayrooms for the occupation by Gypsies and Travellers as defined by Welsh Government Circular “Planning for Gypsy, Traveller Sites”

The site was previously allocated as green barrier land in Wrexham Council’s Unitary Development Plan.

However, it has been removed from that category in the local authority’s recently approved Local Development Plan.

The agent added: “My client wishes me to add that despite meetings with the council’s gypsy liaison
officers he has been unable to find an alternative site.

“Sites are either unsuitable for his family’s needs, unavailable because of the reluctance of landowners to sell land with the prospect of such an impending use, or land is simply unaffordable.

“It is my view that the lack of available sites and the personal circumstances, submitted in a separate private and confidential document direct to the allocated planning officer, merits substantial weight to approve of my client’s planning application.”

The proposals will be considered by the council at a later date.