PLANS for a traveller site near Basildon Golf Course have been thrown out - to the delight of nearby residents.

Basildon Council held its Strategic Infrastructure and Planning Committee meeting last night at the Basildon Sporting Village as it expected a large turnout to the meeting, where the location of traveller sites in the borough were discussed.

One of the most controversial options was to reconsider locating eight of the pitches on green belt land in close to the golf course, just five months after the plan was thrown out.

But meeting chair Richard Moore received a round of applause from residents in the packed sports hall when he announced the council would not be supporting this.

He said: “We had said earlier this year we would not support the option with eight pitches in Vange, 13 in East Basildon, 15 in South Wickford and 15 in South West Billericay.

"We will not be supporting that tonight."

Proposals to place pitches near the golf course were considered to be highly detrimental to both the golf course and the potential development of a new high end hotel on land nearby.

The deputy leader of the Conservative Group, Councillor Kevin Blake, added: “It wasn’t right then, it’s still not right now.

"Not just at the golf course but also all over the borough it wasn’t fair to the settled residents and it wasn’t fair to the travelling community either – let’s make that quite clear it wasn’t right for them.”

It was also decided at the meeting to make the current authorised traveller pitches authorised sites, meaning that only five extra sites would need to be found.

Mr Blake said: "We will authorise 26 unauthorised pitches where the traveller status is unknown, allowing our enforcement officers to clear other unauthorised sites quicker.

"We’re going to have nine pitches in the borough that we already know are occupied by travellers, 10 already allocated in Gardiners Lane South as laid out in the Local Plan, three for the travelling and show people in Burnt Mills.

"This leaves five pitches to find.

"These will be one site in Crays Hill with two pitches, one site with one pitch in north Benfleet and one site with two pitches in Fobbing.”

While the rest of the committee were keen to support the new proposal questions were raised over the repercussions of authorising unauthorised sites and the message it sends.

Mr Blake called it a “bittersweet taste” but promised the administration would take a “zero tolerance” approach to enforcement.

The committee agreed to the proposal with three voting for and two against.

It will be discussed further at the full council meeting in October.

Mick Toomer, chairman of the Friends of Basildon Golf Course said: “As the Friends of Basildon Golf Course we were disappointed that the issue which had been settled in March was re-visited.

"Having said that we are pleased with tonight’s result, which, on the face of it, appears to be a clever solution to a difficult problem. Hopefully this is now the end of the matter, and the Friends of Basildon Golf Course can go back into hibernation."

Speaking after the meeting, Labour councillor Andrew Gordon, who attended in place of leader Adele Brown, criticised the administration for putting the new option forward during the meeting rather than outlining it within the initial agenda. He said it “seemed like theatrics”.

He also reiterated concerns over the authorisation of unauthorised sites.

He said: “If we go back to the Dale Farm days they spent millions on removing an unauthorised camp and now they are saying that actually an unauthorised camp is fine.

"At the time of dale farm one of the suggestions from labour was why not make it legal but now after spending millions of tax payer money they are saying they’ve changed that I don’t understand why.

“That policy doesn’t make sense. That money could have been used on housing people in Basildon not to hire bailiffs to kick out travellers.”