The above is the statement of a Mr. Fred Adams, of Huntingdonshire, in his application for planning permission for developing his own caravan site.
The Adams family (no relations to the one on TV) who Romany-Gypsy are trying to get planning permission to put six caravans on a field off Chatteris Road in Somersham has put forward another application.
Permission for a similar project was refused by Huntingdonshire District Council at a meeting in St Ives in November.
At the time, the applicant, Fred Adams, told the council's development control panel that he wanted to use the land as a home for members of his extended family.
He added that he was a genuine Romany Gypsy and it went against his beliefs to live in a house.
However, Mr. Adams currently lives in a house, so it would appear, which he wants to sell in order to develop the caravan site for he said he planned to sell his house in Stukeley Meadows and use the money to develop the site to include six pitches, a roadway and hardstanding on the field, which is more than a mile from the centre of the village.
District councillors, however, decided that access from the site to the main road would be dangerous and that the site would have an adverse impact on residents, businesses and the character of the area.
Mr Adams has now altered the planned access to the site with a view to gaining planning permission for the scheme.
Somersham Parish Council, which also objected to the original development on the grounds that it would be unsustainable, was going to consider the plans at a meeting on Monday, February 4, before they are put before Huntingdonshire District Council.
Statements like that by Mr. Adams in an attempt to get planning permission for such a site do not help at all and do no one any favors, not even the person making them. In fact they will make it worse for others to get permission.
I too am a true, as Mr. Adams says, Romani-Gypsy but I do live in a house and I know probably more about the true beliefs of the People than Mr. Adams, I am afraid to say, will ever know. His claim as to living in a house being against Romani beliefs is absolute humbug. How can he justify such a claim anyway as he currently lives in a house he owns?
If he wants to have his extended family live with him, which is something that I can understand and that is why we, as a People need to fight for the right to be able to develop our own settlements, then he should say so properly and, maybe, buy a bigger house or even a farm where he can then develop building where members of his extended family can live. The rest is hukaben and kek else.
© Michael Smith (Veshengro), February 2008
