Plans for a touring caravan site near a ‘trouble spot’ for anti-social behaviour on Redcote Lane in Kirkstall have been submitted.
Leeds Caravan Storage Ltd plan to introduce the site on a piece of green space land at the side of Aire Valley House.
A planning statement accompanying the application says the site around the area known as ‘Redcote Lane Gate’ has been ‘marked out as a trouble spot for car and motorbike racing, drug abuse and assaults on people using Redcote Lane’.
The statement, compiled by Fraser Dunchurch Ltd, says Leeds Caravan Storage were originally refused planning permission to change the use of the site by the council in 2013 on the grounds that the site was ‘green space’ which needed to be safeguarded. A subsequent appeal to an independent planning inspector failed.
The statement adds:
“Many of our client’s patrons have signified that sometimes they would prefer to just occupy their caravans on the adjacent site without going out on the road, enjoying a break on the application site rather than going elsewhere…
“This application is therefore as the result of this demand by patrons to take their caravans the short distance from the adjacent storage site to the application site.”
The statement says the site, which would be secure, would be used for leisure purposes and be landscaped by extending an existing laurel hedge. There would also be extra tree planting on the site. It adds the proposals will:
“… make a positive contribution to the green wedge or green space while using the land in a practical way with a leisure use.”
Read the planning statement in full below:
Leeds Caravan Storage Ltd Planning Application by John Baron on Scribd
The planning application can be viewed – and commented upon – on Leeds City Council’s planning portal here.
Good luck to them with this application. If there is a regular presence in the area it should act as a deterrent to the anti social behaviour and LCC seem unwilling to tackle it.