PLANS have been submitted for a Gypsy and Traveller site in Wrexham.

A planning application has been lodged with Wrexham Council for a four-pitch family site on land at Stryt Y Bydden in Caego, New Broughton.

The site is a redundant railway line, a branch of the Moss Valley Line which ran through the village of Caego until the 1930’s as part of the Great Western Railways Network. The site generally consisting of railway ballast has been left to its natural resources and had become overgrown with self-set scrubland and fly tipping.

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Planning documents state that the site is tantamount to being a brownfield site as it is previously developed land and used as a siding for rolling railway stock.

The development proposed is for the change of use of the land to a residential caravan site incorporating the clearance of the site of undergrowth, railway ballast and provision of new fencing. 

A planning agent acting on behalf of the applicant said in a design and access statement: "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.

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"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 plans will be decided on by Wrexham Council at a later date.