A LAND offer from Powys Council to replace common land in Machynlleth that would be lost as part of the proposal for a traveller site has been rubbished by Machynlleth town councillors as being unsuitable.

While Powys Council’s planning committee has given the go-ahead for the traveller site on land near Machynlleth Cemetery, this is common land, which means the county council has to provide an alternative area of land.

The suggested alternative site is forested land near the common, but town councillors hit out at the offer insisting it was inaccessible to many residents and was liable to flooding.

Town councillors agreed to write to Powys Council insisting the exchange was not acceptable and calling for alternative land to be considered.

Cllr Rhydian Mason said: “They couldn’t have chosen a further piece of land if they tried. If that’s the closest piece of land they can find for the people of this town, who is running this county?”

Cllr Diana Lewis added: “They call this deregistration of common land, but I call it stealing land. This is not like for like. Nobody can walk up there. That’s not a reasonable proposal. That’s a take-the-mickey proposal.”

As well as concerns over the accessibility of the land, Cllr Sylvia Rowlands said there were flooding problems at the site which would make it unusable.

She said: “I think that’s absolutely disgusting. That land gets flooded when it rains.

“It’s no use to man or beast. The best thing you can do is to use it for grazing sheep and I think that must be what they think we are – sheep.”

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