Dozens of residents turned up this morning at Acomb Library to protest at Labours building plans for the area.

It was the only opportunity that residents will have to voice their opinions as Ward Committee meetings are being scrapped.

Meanwhile more mis-information is being circulated by vested interests.

One Correspondent claimed in The Press that the campsite on Wetherby Road was for “Travellers” and urged residents to sign a Council web site petition opposing it.

Fortunately, for Wetherby Road residents, there are very clear legal differences between a Showman’s lay over site and a Traveller camp. It will be much easier to demonstrate that there is little need for the former. The Council is likely to readily agree to the “on line” petition’s request not to site a Traveller camp near Knapton…diverting attending away from the real issue, which is the maintenance of the Green Belt designation for all the land on the Rufforth/Knapton plain.

The land here, and the field at Dunnington which is indeed threatened for use as a caravan site for Travellers, was confirmed as being important “Green Belt” land when the Local Plan was agreed in February 2011.

What the landowners are now trying to do is break that Green Belt designation.

They have no interest in providing campsites which offer a low financial return. Once the land is removed from the Green Belt, they will seek residential or retail use for it.

An acre of agricultural land might have a value of £10,000.

If identified for housing development, its value would soar to £1 million or more.

That is the long game that some land owners are playing.

That is one of the reasons why the owners are so keen to develop the land south of Moor Lane near Woodthorpe

By accepting the expression of interest, in providing caravan sites, at face value the Council have been naïve bordering on the gullible.

Ironically they are no closer to solving any perceived lack of traveller’s pitches.

A similar attempt to muddy the water can be found in an article in today’s Yorkshire Post.

The author, from the Tory right wing policy think tank The Centre for Policy Studies, claims that the City needs 22,000 new homes in order to supply workers for local industry.

While he accepts that many of these new workers are likely to come from Eastern Europe, he argues that companies like Nestle have unfilled vacancies .

Not so. Nestle has dramatically reduced its workforce over the last 20 years.

What it and other companies need is a supply of skilled staff. Something that the City is well able to provide given our outstanding Higher Education facilities.

York has a low unemployment rate. There are job vacancies but mainly in the social care and retail sectors. Persuading people to undertake a career in those types of jobs is a rather different challenge.
The article author claims the City’s population is “rapidly growing”. Actually is has grown by a modest 1% per annum during the last decade which saw a boom in the earlier part of the decade.

There are over 3000 outstanding planning permissions for new homes in the City. If developers could sell homes, then they would be built.

The 2011 Local Plan identified sites which would allow between 600 and 800 new homes to be built each year. More than enough to satisfy sustainable growth in York’s economy.

The sites identified then did not intrude into the Green Belt. They are still available.

678 residents in Acomb, Westfield and Dringhouses have now signed the “Save the Green Belt” petition.