Controversial moves to create new pitches in South Gloucestershire for gipsy families were being debated in Parliament today.

Northavon MP Steve Webb was leading the 30-minute debate this afternoon after concerns were raised over the way traveller sites have recently gone through the planning system or may be allocated in future.

Last month, one especially contentious site in Hall End, between Rangeworthy and Wickwar, was narrowly given approval as a traveller camp by South Gloucestershire Council, despite the authority having previously spent years taking enforcement action on the same site to remove an unauthorised encampment.

Mr Webb said at about the same time, the council indicated it was considering including a "supersite" in a nearby rural area in Tanhouse Lane, north of Yate, in its current two-year consultation process on suitable sites for travellers.

The MP said that scheme would have room for at least 12 pitches, which could mean many times that number of caravans, as well as utility blocks, in an area poorly served by country roads, which has no mains drainage and is near a railway line.

Mr Webb said: "It is right the council should try to identify suitable sites for gipsies and travellers but local residents are angry that clearly unsuitable sites have been approved by councillors who appear to have no interest in the views of local people.

"Although the council is consulting on its long-term strategy for sites, the campaigners I have met have no faith that their views will be listened to in the future when they have been so clearly ignored in the recent past.

"If the council was to include the Tanhouse Lane 'supersite' in its Autumn consultation document, this would be the clearest indication yet that they were simply not listening to local people.

"This is not a site that should be approved for traditional housing development and it should not be approved as a travellers' site for exactly the same reasons.

"I believe all groups in society should be treated fairly – the majority who make up the settled community and also those who are gipsies and travellers.

"But at present it seems the rules are not fair and are not being applied equally.

"I will be asking ministers to look at the impact of the duties they have placed on councils with regard to gipsies and travellers."

The council is under Government orders to have at least 53 new residential and 25 transit pitches for gipsies in the district by 2011.

But local residents were angry at how they believed their views were ignored by councillors from other areas when the Hall End application was approved.