Alternative sites should be considered too

I understand that the council had a number (9?) of sites from which to choose, and they chose Thornton. Surely, for a balanced discussion, the identities of the other sites should be made public knowledge, as part of the consultation. This is not NIMBYism: those debating the issue can weigh up the pros and cons of the different sites probably as well as the council. Reasons why other sites were discarded could be provided by the council.....wouldn't this come under Freedom of Information ? Rather than have an all-or-none strategy, let's widen the discussion.

Best Wishes,
Martin Holt

The council has identified 9 sites as preferred options - 1 of which is Thornton. There are 39 pitches required across the borough and 10 of these are destined for Thornton. There are lots of alternative sites which had been put forward but are not the choice of the elected members members.

The 9 sites on the preferred list will make up the allocation. It is not that Thornton will take them all but will take a quarter of the allocation. For Thornton not to be included an alternative location will have to be added to the preferred list.

All of the details are available on the H&BBC website - to the right of the screen.

Thank you for clarifying that. So one of nine (11%) sites is listed for 25% of the pitches. Unless the remaining 8 sites are each going to have a small % to take up the remaining 75%, one or more of them are not going to have any pitches. Which takes us back to my first email.

We are currently basing our consultation on "not Thornton". That will be looked at as NIMBYism, and even the fairest of consultations will be biased against Thornton because of that. The nine sites need to be part of one consultation: that's not NIMBYism but looking at the picture at the size that it is. The council will say that this is what they have done. We need to be able to perform the same appraisal, and have access to the minutes of the meeting(s) that resulted in this situation.

Best Wishes,
Martin Holt