THE first of a series of exhibitions on contro- versial plans to provide nearly 80 new pitches for gipsy and traveller families in South Gloucestershire has been held as part of a three-month consultation programme.

South Gloucestershire Council has been told it has to increase the number of pitches for travellers by 2011 to prevent the Government stepping in and deciding where they should go.

It has produced a list of 17 possible sites throughout the district where the extra spaces could be created, some of them on existing camps.

Now the council wants to hear the views of people who could be affected by the proposals and has organised three exhibitions to give them the chance to comment.

The first was held in Bradley Stoke Leisure Centre on Tuesday and will be followed by displays in Chipping Sodbury and Easter Compton.

The proposals have already led to complaints from people opposed to accommodating some of the pitches in their communities.

They include residents in areas where there are already sites and those in villages that could have pitches for the first time.

Families in Pilning have handed in a petition against further plots because there are already five traveller sites in the immediate vicinity of the village.

South Gloucestershire's list of possible sites have the potential to create 53 residential and 25 transit pitches if they were all given approval.

Some would go onto camps where more caravans could be fitted in without expanding the site.

Others are near existing camps and some are in new locations.

Currently there are two council-run sites in Patchway and Winterbourne, as well as a number of privately owned camps.

The next exhibition will be in Chipping Sodbury Town Hall on Friday, November 21, between 10am and 2.30pm, with the third in Easter Compton Village Hall on Thursday, November 27, from 12.30pm to 5pm. Councillors will make a decision on the pitches after the consultation ends on January 29, with planning permission also needed before any can be built.

Sites being considered for an intensification of use are those in: Bank Road, Pilning; Bristol Road, Frampton Cotterell; Henfield Road, Coalpit Heath; Gloucester Road, Almondsbury; Berwick Lane, Easter Compton; Badminton Road, Nibley, near Yate; and two in Westerleigh Road, Westerleigh.

Sites close to existing camps are in Bank Road, Pilning, and next to Northwood Park, Winterbourne, directly north of the council- owned site in Old Gloucester Road.

New locations are in: Hall End Lane, between Wickwar and Rangeworthy; Wyckbeck Road, Patchway; Kendall Close, Yate, between the Badminton and Westerleigh business parks.

Being considered solely for transit camps in South Gloucestershire are: land next to the service station at Sandy Lane, Aust; Curtis Lane, Stoke Gifford; Northwick Road, Pilning, and east of Mulgrove Farm, near Old Gloucester Road, Winterbourne.