A NEW one-family gipsy site near Bosbury could set a precedent.

That is the fear of local parish councillor Brian Clutterbuck in response to a planning application submitted to Herefordshire Council for Nash End Lane, Pow Green.

Coun Clutterbuck said: "There's no special criteria for people of gipsy extraction. The criteria for planning permission to put a mobile home on a piece of land is the same for everyone.

"I do know the family concerned. They have been in Bosbury a number of years and have fitted well into the community, and really, one has to think of a way of accommodating these people."

He said the large Open Fields gipsy site at Bromyard was purpose built and that the Bosbury site was a different issue and "a one-off".

Coun Clutterbuck warned that there were already "caravans scattered about Bosbury parish, in odd corners". He said that although there were available properties in the village, the high house prices were beyond many people, leading to them "taking root" in mobile homes and caravans.

Coun Clutterbuck added: "It's a way of having a home of your own but it doesn't make it right. When you have rules, you have to apply them the same to everybody.

"If people don't watch it, we'll have mobile homes everywhere."

John Burnett, for Herefordshire Council, said the application only arrived on the planners' desk on Wednesday morning.

"It's for retrospective planning permission and all we can do is look at the individual circumstances surrounding this," he said.