COUNCILLORS will decide on a bid for a permanent home for the travelling community in the countryside.

Residents have raised concerns about an application to Eastleigh Borough Council to make a temporary single family gypsy and traveller caravan pitch permanent.

The land concerned, off Stroudwood Lane, Lower Upham, has a timber chalet which had been given permission for a limited time, expiring on December 31 last year.

Now Carol Leigh, who has been living on the site since 2006, has applied to Eastleigh Borough Council for the structure to become permanent.

A council officer’s report states Ms Leigh bought the site in 2004. But when council officials found evidence it was being used to live on they issued a Planning Contravention Notice.

However, the council granted two-year temporary permission in 2008 for continued residential use of the site and again until December 2012.

A planning inspector allowed on appeal the site to be used by any gypsy or traveller but only one caravan on site at a time and only up to the end of last year.

Fair Oak and Horton Heath Parish Council and several residents have objected, alongside a 13-signature petition, saying the site was only ever meant to be temporary until an alternative travellers’ site was found, it is not sustainable, develops countryside and is out of character.

The site was proposed as a permanent pitch in the council’s draft plans to address the needs of the travelling community, however this has since become part of the Eastleigh Local Plan - a blueprint for future housing development yet to go out to consultation.

Documents submitted on Ms Leigh’s behalf say that the council’s development plan for traveller sites is not up to date therefore there should be a presumption in favour of the proposal and that there was screening to mitigate its impact.

The council report, which recommends the proposal be turned down, pointed to a Government inspector’s comments from a previous application saying that the whole site was “very obtrusive and severely detrimental to the character and appearance of the area” and should not be allowed to remain unless there were strong reasons to override this.

The Bishopstoke, Fair Oak and Horton Heath Local Area Committee will decide at a meeting at Stoke Park Junior School on Wednesday at 7pm.