Planning permission to include 3 traveller pitches…

[MrsALS]

If you were living close by (circa 0.5 miles) to a new build development that included 3 permanent traveller pitches would you be worried?
Local planning has just been approved.
On one hand 0.5 miles isn’t on our doorstep, 3 pitches isn’t huge, and I’m guessing a permanent site as part of a wider new development is better than a temporary, illegal site. But on the other hand I can’t help but be nervous, particularly the impact on resale value.
Can I have opinions please?

Most of us will be living near to small traveller sites and won’t have a clue. I had a quick look where there are sites in my local area and there’s quite a few small permanent sites near by less than 6 pitches near by and I had no idea - they’re mostly in ones or twos. It’s not something, I’d ever think to google when moving, and the only time it might be of concern is if you’re moving next door and to be frank that’s no different to you wanting to check out the neighbours or living next to a rented property, holiday let, Air BnB when you choose to buy. It’s certainly not affecting house prices round here and it’s a popular area and you wouldn’t know they were there driving around. Anyone could move next door to you or into a new build estate and cause anti-social behaviour.

I wouldn’t care less unless there was a documented issue which is the same way I feel about being in close proximity of any other community. I lived within half a mile of a traveller site for 4 years and it was fine, no more crime than anywhere else.

Travellers need somewhere to live and most of them just want to keep their head down and get on, same as everybody else.

The sort of site OP is talking about is small, regulated by the LA and cannot expand.

Totally agree. My point was that the poster went on to ask if I'd have a problem with Indian or black residents living nearby. Sounds like they presumed that I was neither...

Thank you for your thoughts otherwise though, very valid points.

Thanks so much for all your thoughts and opinions. As with so much in life, a very mixed bag! Lots to think about and really appreciate everyone's input, thank you.

Absolutely fucking not. Why would you? Find somewhere else.

Half a mile away? I'd have no issues with that. There's a settled traveller family that distance away from me, they don't cause any bother.

I think such a small, regulated site would be ok in terms of your day to day living.

However, you’d need to be prepared for future selling issues as some people hear the word traveller and run a mile.

That concern isn’t without merit though. There are many horror stories from illegal pitches (which I know this isn’t, but the concern remains for many). We had one about 2 miles away. Maybe 40 or so vans took up residence in a disused car park which was next to a few businesses (pub, McDonald’s, cinema etc). Within days the whole area was trashed - rubbish everywhere, business property damaged, car break ins, shit and piss outside, dogs everywhere, kids throwing stones at passing cars, bogus workmen at local homes looking for non-existent work.

Just generally cuntish behaviour which underlines why people feel the way they do about travellers moving in nearby.

Yes it is racist.

if this post said ‘we live close to a large Chinese/indian/black’ population, will this affect resale? It’s absolutely racist to suggest that travellers are criminals/anti social when using a legal pitch (and more than it is to say that about ANY OTHER racial group)

I’m actually horrified that MY post was deleted and not this thread. Genuinely shocked.

No i didn’t presume you were neither. Anyone can be racist. It’s about having an issue with a racial group that is not your own. Are you a traveller? If not you are being racist.

Also YOU toiling be homophobic not to open the bar- it’s a business derision. But it doesn’t affect the fact that the population are wrong be be homophobic.

How would affect resale value of your house 0.5 miles away? There is no legal search that a solicitor would do to identify a permanent traveller site, so unless a buyer had intimate local knowldege or had had issues with the travellers (so why would they be looking st your house) i am not sure it would ever come up?. So i would not worry about it. 3 plots is tiny.
If you were buying the house next door it may be an issue. But you are not.

We have a 25 pitch caravan park specially for the travelling community within half a mile.
Apart from the recycling trucks, the garden or driveway team we hardly know they are there. Occasionally we see them in the supermarket or local pub.
As is usual in life there are good and bad people.

We live close to quite a large site. My neighbour and I once commented ruefully to each other that your attitude to it showed how long you had lived in the village. When you first move there and hear people talking about travellers in terms illiterate children leaving school after Primary to “home educate”, petty crime, extorting local business, aggressive door to door sales, dumping rubbish etc, you assume everyone is a bigot and are shocked. Then a few years down the track you have seen all this with your own eyes.

0.5 mile is not "nothing". I don't think houses on that estate would sell would they? We have "travellers" stop on our common nearly every year and our area changes beyond belief during the time they are here.

Yes it would.
Based on direct experience.

But wouldn’t the OP deciding not to buy because she worries about resale value be making a business decision also?

(I’m not saying this is morally easy, by the way: if I failed to employ someone of a given race not because I’m racist but because I thought my customers were that would be wrong).

Oh great, the usual racism against travellers is on display today.

Yes and if you challenge it your post is deleted!

Report report report

Thank you for this balanced view.

I am not a traveller, but a teacher that knows: teaches some children from the traveller community. They are like all of communities - most are good people with a few bad apples. For children to grow up and be told they are from a ‘bad’ community that would affect house prices is WRONG. For people to feel so unwelcome is WRONG. Just as it would be wrong for black children to think they would grow up to join a gang etc etc. we need to stop this narrative. Mumsnet need to stamp it out. It is not ok for this to be an acceptable discussion.

And by wrong I mean RACIST.

We have 2 traveller sites similar distance away, rural, no problems at all, I'm in the building trade and use quite a few of the chaps as casual labour, and if we get any scrap metal just pop it at the end of your drive and its gone within 24 hours, what's not to like.

But I grew up on a farm in the days when British & Irish travellers did all our picking, played with their kids etc. most are good honest folk, the odd bad apple sure, but you get them in houses too.

I am a gypsy. I have grown up with this.

I went to school and teachers tried to force me to talk with a different accent. When I said something they'd say "No, you mean X".

I've had to hide my ethnicity in order to get jobs as I knew I'd have no chance if they knew.

I've been asked to pay before I eat in a restaurant where every other person was given a bill at the end.

I've been denied entry to countless places and told plainly that they don't allow my kind there.

I could go on and on. How anyone can come on here with the audacity to say it's not racism is beyond me.

I would fight it