‘We won’t be held to ransom over Travellers’ sites’
Council leader’s land hunt pledge
Published:
A COUNCIL chief today insisted Aberdeen will not be “held to ransom” over plans to let private landowners provide temporary Travellers’ sites.
Property experts have claimed the cost to the council of buying land to set up four new halting sites could be more than £1 million.
But council leader Kate Dean said: “I do not know how much this will cost. Council officers have been asked to investigate.
“We will have to see what this brings forward.
“The council is not going to spend silly money on a site. We will not be held to ransom by anybody.
“I think it was the opposition that came up with the suggestion that we should be looking at private land, because they didn't like the site that we had come up with.”
The news comes at a time when the council is making cuts to services and increasing charges to fill a £27 million black hole in the council’s revenue fund.
Money to pay for the sites, which would cost £168,000 a year to run, would come from the council’s capital funds.
The council is running adverts appealing to private landowners to come forward if they have plots of ground of an acre or more for sale or lease which could accommodate up to 10 caravans.
Property experts said sites of that size in the city could cost more than £1m, depending on location and whether they were zoned for development.
Councillor Willie Young, secretary of the Labour group on the city council, branded the local authority “the laughing stock of Scotland”.
He said: “This Liberal Democrat-SNP administration has got its priorities all wrong. Now we see that they are willing to purchase or lease land for travelling people when they are about to embark on a savage £27 million of cuts in our budget.”
But Cllr Dean added: “If there is any money spent on it, it is a question of spending capital money to save on revenue.”
