9:19am Friday 8th August 2008
By Lucie Richards
A GATE is to be installed to keep travellers out of a cul-de-sac in a north Hampshire community.
Old Basing and Lychpit Parish Council is installing a gate to prohibit unauthorised access to a piece of land at Cowdrey Heights, in Basing Road, Old Basing - a site which travellers have been using to stop on for several years.
Councillor Elaine Still, Hampshire county councillor for the Loddon division, explained: "It's a cul-de-sac road and travellers usually go right to the end of the road and park there.
"I have had so many e-mails and phone calls over the years complaining about travellers. A lot of people walk and cycle to work that way and mums go along there with their children and dogs."
She added that people find the travellers intimidating and that, in the past, they have left rubbish behind them when they have moved on.
Cllr Still, parish councillors and the local beat officer, Pc Sam Stroud, held a meeting with residents at Cowdrey Heights, who were content to have a gate put up.
Tony Fendall, chairman of Old Basing and Lychpit Parish Council, said that groups of travellers come to Cowdrey Heights two or three times a year.
He said: "They have been quite difficult to get off there due to confusion over the ownership of the land, but I think a gate seems like a pretty good solution.
"There may be a problem with travellers then parking on the road, but that is much easier for police to deal with because it's a public highway."
The total cost to install the gate is estimated at £2,000 and Hampshire County Council's highways department will pay £1,000 towards it.
The parish council has agreed to pay the first £500 of the cost and plans to apply to the county councillor for the remaining £500 from her £10,000 devolved budget scheme, which she can use for community projects.
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