Leyland Golf Club looks to crack down on unauthorised travellers and their caravans with 2.4m metal barriers

The car park serves both the golf club and the adjacent pre-school nursery, and is accessed directly off Wigan Road.

A planning statement to South Ribble Borough Council says the barriers would provide "greater security for the users of both facilities who share the car park, whilst allowing access and egress onto the highway without causing danger to highway safety."

It continues: "The 2.4m height is to allow vehicles who regularly use the car park to continue to use the facilities whilst deterring caravans and other larger vehicles. The design is such to allow larger vehicles to load and unload off road without going into the main site to ensure this aim is achieved."

Bailiffs

The Golf Club has been subjected to four instances of unauthorised travellers and their caravans and lorries parking on the site for periods of time until removed by bailiffs. Each incidence costs around £3,000 to resolve.

The statement continues: "That’s unsustainable. As such the erection of these barriers will hopefully prevent repeat events from happening for the safety of all concerned."

How else is it justified?

The land in question is Green Belt, and the height of the proposed barriers surpasses what is allowed.

But the Golf Club says there would also be benefits to tradespeople entering the site.

They say: "At present trades vehicles simply come into the site. There is no designated service entrance or area.

"What will happen if this development tis approved, is that larger vehicles loading and unloading (7m in length) will go into the cordoned off space at the front of the site.

"They will then unload and after doing so, reverse back to the raised barriers on the south side of the entrance which is to be set back further than the raised barrier on the north side to allow for vehicles to then leave the site in a forward gear. The result is a net loss of 4 car parking spaces out of 125. This remains sufficient (along with the overflow car park to the south) to satisfy Policy F1 of the South Ribble Local Plan."