A CAMPAIGNER for gipsy rights has joined the opposition to plans for a travellers’ site in Colchester.

Chris Atkins says Essex County Council should go back to the drawing board, as its proposed 12-pitch camp will not fit the bill for travellers who are passing through the area.

Mrs Atkins, who teaches traveller children to read and has befriended numerous families who have stopped in Colchester, has for years been lobbying for the official site in Severalls Lane to be built without delay.

But she said, on closer inspection of plans submitted by the county council, she realised the project was intended to provide a permanent base for members of the travelling community.

She said what was really needed was a “transit” site where travellers could pull over at short notice for stays of a few days or weeks at a time. Mrs Atkins, who lives in Colchester, said: “There are lots of different types of people we call travellers, including Romany gipsies, Irish travellers and English travellers.

“They all have different habits and standards – some are spotlessly clean and others can leave a lot of mess.

“If you have a permanent site where some people have put down roots and have their children in school, and others are just passing through, it just won’t work.

“You would need to have a big fence up or something, with the permanent people on one side and the visitors on the other.”

Mrs Atkins said the current plan would do little to combat the problem of travellers stopping illegally in laybys and on patches of waste ground, because if the permanent site was filled up with settled travellers, they would still have nowhere to go. She felt another problem with the application was that Colchester Council had only agreed to lease the land required to Essex County Council for ten years.

Mrs Atkins said: “People won’t want to move there and enroll the children in schools if there’s a chance the whole place could be knocked down in ten years.

“What is really needed is more private sites, with four of five pitches, and a transit site at Severalls for those passing through.”

Hundreds of residents have already objected to the Essex County Council plans, which have had to be resubmitted after the time limit ran out on permission granted in 2007.

The application will be voted on by Colchester Council’s planning committee in the next few weeks.