Residents used people power in their protest against plans for a travellers' site on their doorstep.

More than 180 residents took to the streets and marched in protest.

The throng of people paraded through the streets of Old Heath, Colchester, yesterday afternoon with banners and loudspeakers to make themselves heard.

Five sites already earmarked in the controversial hunt for suitable land in the borough have been knocked back by councillors, and the newest proposed area is now close to the busy and residential Old Heath Road.

March organiser Graham Sheppard said the Colchester Council plan had not been well thought out.

"The site is completely inappropriate. It isn't good for the people who would live there or for our residents."

The march was not against gipsies, he added, but other travellers who would not be officially registered at the planned site.

Published Monday November 4, 2002

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