A £1.8 million permanent traveller site will be built after plans were approved yesterday.

The controversial camp, which will be run by Brighton and Hove City Council, will be next to the existing transit site at Horsdean, in Braypool Lane.

The local authority’s Green administration, which spearheaded the proposal, claim it will help reduce the number of unauthorised camps in and around the city.


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Speaking after yesterday’s South Downs National Park Authority decision, Councillor Pete West said he was “pleased” with the result.

He said: “Once built, the new site will give greater stability for travelling families and strengthen links with the local community that already exist with the transit site.

“The proposals will also see the traveller liaison team operating from a building on site, to ensure closer and better working with the community and reduce site management costs.”

The 12-pitch taxpayer-funded site will include a children’s play area and manager’s office.

Each pair of pitches will also get an amenity building with a kitchen, dining room, bathroom and patio.

There will be parking spaces for each pitch along with a front and side garden.

Designers also left a space for the council’s mobile Play Bus, which will visit the site periodically.

A report to the planning committee said: “The 12 new pitches are arranged in an organic pattern, interspersed with trees and shrub planting and open grassland to integrate with the natural landscape.

“The layout of the site is intended to create a safe and accessible environment, whilst respecting and responding to the constraints of the natural environment.”

The application has attracted criticism since it was publicised last year.

Conservative leader Coun Geoffrey Theobald opposed the plans at yesterday’s meeting.

He said: “The permanent site will not reduce the number of unauthorised encampments because they come from visiting travellers and van dwellers.

“Indeed, this permanent site will make the situation worse by reducing the number of transit pitches.”

Dawn Barnett, Conservaitve councillor for Hangleton and Knoll ward, said: “We will still get groups parking in fields and parks all through the summer. It has room for 12 caravans, but how many hundreds do we have in the city at the height of summer?”