Devon has no emergency stopping places for Gypsies and travellers

The council describes the proposals as four "small transit sites", saying they are needed to help bring problems of unauthorised sites under control.

Applications have been submitted for land at Ipplepen, Denbury, Shillingford Abbot and Fremington.

But people living nearby say more suitable locations should be found and they will protest against the plans.

Previous applications

Devon has no official transit sites or emergency stopping places for Gypsies and travellers, which the Commission for Racial Equality is keen to see in all local authority areas.

In the last year, there have been 119 unauthorised traveller sites in Devon, a 60% increase on 2002.

In 2003, the council was granted government cash to set up two sites, but applications for land at Haldon Hill and near Totnes were refused by its own Development Control Committee.

The new applications are being supported by Devon and Cornwall Police, which have said transit sites are a common-sense solution that would allow swifter action to close unauthorised sites.

Devon County Council said there were approximately 3,000 Gypsies and travellers in the county each year.

It said the majority were law-abiding, but a minority, approximately 200 people a year, stopped at unauthorised encampments.

Just one unauthorised site can cost up to �5,000 for cleaning up and repairs, it said.

PROPOSED SITES Bulleigh Elms Farm, Ipplepen Fairfield Farm, Denbury Markhams Farm, Shillingford Abbot Lydacott picnic site, near Fremington

The council is bidding for special government funding to cover the set-up costs for the sites.

Jill Owen, from Devon County Council, said: "We have a rare opportunity to help ease this chronic problem with government funding.

"The alternative is to do nothing, and unauthorised sites will continue to spring up causing disputes, unhappiness and cost to the public purse."

Chief Inspector Adrian Brigden, of Devon and Cornwall Police, said: "Experience has shown us that in the majority of cases where travellers are directed to leave, they simply move onto another unauthorised location, but we hope this will change.

"It is important to provide suitable sites and support for those travellers leading positive law abiding lives."

However, one dairy farmer who only moved on to one proposed site 18 months ago and only wished to be identified as Kiernan, said he thought there would be a big campaign against the plans.

He said: "We have invested substantially in the business and the farm only for this to be compromised by this proposal. This is yet another blow to dairy farmers already struggling to survive."

Public meetings will be held in each of the four new proposed areas before the issue goes to the council's Development Control Committee on 26 January.