The beautiful location at Hersden, near Canterbury, overlooking the River Stour, which applicants for a gipsy camp say has no landscape value.

by Gerry Warren

Claims a new travellers' site at Hersden, near Canterbury, would be an eyesore, increase crime and lower property prices, have been branded as "total rubbish" by the Gypsy Council.

It has applied for planning permission for a 25-plot site and accommodation for up to 100 caravans on pasture now grazed by cattle at Hoplands Farm overlooking the Stour.

But Joe Jones, who is vice-chairman of the south east branch of the council, has responded angrily to the allegations, saying he is "sick to death of the gipsy community being treated like a virus".

Mr Jones, who is also director of Canterbury Gypsy Support, recently won another long-running planning battle over his own gipsy home at Moat Farm in Fordwich.

He said: "It’s the city council’s duty to find land for another registered site for gipsies in the district - but it has failed so we have had to try and find our own.

"The new site would be family-orientated and because each would own their own plot, there will be pride in its appearance. They are not like unlicensed sites. It would also be at no cost to the council or local tax payers."

Mr Jones said there was big demand for a new gipsy site from families who had been "forced into social housing" when they wanted to live their own traditional way.

He said: "We want to live in harmony with the local community and will add to the local economy. I'm sick to death with us being treated like a virus and strangers in our own country. We are vilified because of a tiny fraction of 'wrong-uns'."

Read the full story and reaction in this week's Kentish Gazette newspaper.