Decision expected soon on Travellers’ plans for Lancaster crash site

A decision on a planning application submitted by Travellers who have settled on the site where a second world war Lancaster crashed could be made soon.

Screveton was saved when the heroic pilots of Avro Lancaster W4103 and Airspeed Oxford LB415, which were involved in a mid-air collision in April 1944, steered their stricken aircraft away from the village before crashing with the loss of 11 lives, but no casualties on the ground.

The Travellers, who intend to call their six-plot development Lancaster View, have applied to Rushcliffe Borough Council for planning permission to stay on the greenfield site they own.

However, they have moved on to the site without planning consent and have laid hardstanding and put up fencing.

Mr Simon Robinson, leader of the borough council, visited the site last Friday after a meeting with parish councillors, Newark MP Mr Robert Jenrick, county and borough councillors, and the police, where he said a decision would be made by planning officers under delegated powers.

The consultation period for the application expired on Sunday and Mr Robinson said the result would be known soon.

The borough council has begun enforcement action, separate to the planning application, because the land off Flintham Road has been settled illegally.

Mr Robinson said the Travellers had added a children’s playground.

Speaking last Friday, Mr Robinson said the planning application was going through the due process.

“The decision cannot be prejudged,” he said. Should the application be refused, the applicants have a right of appeal that could be determined by public inquiry.

“The second area is enforcement — the infringement of the law basically,” Mr Robinson said.

“You cannot start development until you have planning permission granted — that is the law of the land.”

He said enforcement was complicated because it was private rather than public land. He said there was a need to protect the rights of the Travellers as a race and that children lived on the site.

He said notices had been served by bailiffs preventing further caravans or construction materials going on to site.

Mr Robinson said the council would have no hesitation in enforcing the law. He said the borough was doing all it could to provide Traveller and Gypsy plots and outline planning permission had been granted for a transit site in Clifton — the first of its kind in Nottinghamshire.

'People should not be intimidated'

Screveton residents told the Advertiser they owed the pilots a debt for saving lives on the ground and were fighting to preserve the site.

Speaking last Friday, a member of the parish council said villagers were feeling intimidated.

“People should not be intimidated,” Mr Robinson said.

“This is Great Britain and people have rights under the law and rights to be protected under the law.

“That includes the ability to make their representations on things like planning applications, and to make their voices heard without fear of intimidation or retribution.”

The Travellers have yet to apply for a licence under the 1986 Protection of Military Remains Act from the Ministry of Defence’s (MOD) Joint Casualty and Compassionate Centre (JCCC) to disturb a military crash site.

Although the bodies of the airmen were removed at the time, there may still be human remains on the site.

It is an offence under the Act to tamper with, damage, move or unearth any items at such sites, unless the MOD has issued a licence authorising such activity.

Mr Jenrick has approached Defence Secretary Mr Gavin Williamson over enforcement of the Protection of Military Remains Act.

He said there was concern the Travellers could expand over the whole of the six-acre field over time.

“If they are there illegally, they need to be removed,” Mr Jenrick said. The agent for the Travellers told the Advertiser previously that the ground had not been disturbed.

Alison Heine said it was regrettable the Travellers had moved on to the site already, but they did so out of desperation at having nowhere else to go.