GIPSIES and travellers in South Somerset will see their old-style mobile homes and utility blocks swept away under a pioneering scheme that could become a national blueprint.

The Western Daily Press told last week how the Government is providing more than £1 million for new and upgraded sites for West travellers, to reduce tension after an increase in the number of those camping illegally.

The bulk of the £970,000 the council has won will go on transforming the existing Ilton and Tintinhull sites to provide new modern "park homes". Superficially they are much more like conventional homes, with all modern conveniences, cutting out the need for utility blocks.

Travellers would pay rent, council tax and other utility bills. The council also plans talks about possible shared ownership.

Ric Pallister, South Somerset District Council's portfoilio holder for housing and social inclusion said: "One of the reasons the Government has given us the money is that, if we get it right, this will be used as a blueprint. This marks a sea change."

In the past the council has been frustrated by major vandalism on its sites by passing Irish travellers.

An attack on the site at Marsh Lane, Tintinhull, wrecked utility blocks and caused more than £200,000 damage.

Cllr Pallister said: "There is a risk, but it is a risk worth taking.

"We had already been given about £1m to upgrade the Ilton site, and now we have secured a further £720,000.

"What we had originally intended, in line with national guidance, is to provide better standard utility blocks, but this allows us now to convert both sites to park homes.

"We want to work on giving people a stake in their homes too, with some form of shared ownership.

"Some time in the new year we will be getting together with the South West Gipsies Council.

"These sites will be the first in the country to go down this road. They will transform our sites over night. We will need to talk to families. We will take one home at a time."

The council is to use £100,000 of the £970,000 on a rolling site acquisition fund to buy land for further sites, which can be sold or leased to travellers, releasing cash to find more. The final £150,000 is to buy an existing private site which has planning permission for three families."

Cllr Pallister said: "We already have a family on our statutory homeless list, who are camping illegally at Ilton, who could go there."