GYPSY and traveller sites are being lined up for Weymouth and Portland.

Members of the borough council’s management committee have voted to push forward with plans for 25 pitches where caravans can be temporarily moved when they are camped on unauthorised sites.

Chairman Mike Goodman told the meeting that Government directives meant the council is the only authority in Dorset not being asked to provide permanent plots where gypsies can stay.

He said: “You might feel that we have got away with it fairly lightly in terms of not having to provide residential pitches.”

Councillor Goodman said the council is ‘nowhere near’ deciding where the transit sites will be or if they will be sited together.

But Coun Howard Legg said: “Maybe we would want one in Weymouth and one on Portland.”

He said the task of moving illegally camped travellers to the transit sites will be the responsibility of the county council and police.

Coun Anne Kenwood said the pitches will benefit both the travellers and the local community.

She said: “It seems to me to be very reasonable for a requirement for 25 spaces.

“Littlemoor is one place we have had them and if there’s no place to put them we have a great deal of difficulty moving them on.

“If there’s a specific site then you can make it better for the people there and if we can make the provision better for them then it’s better for everybody.

“We are better off with transit sites as residential sites could become over-filled.”

Officers predicted that up to £25,000 could be spent on the scheme over the next three years but recouped by a government grant of £27,200.

They advised there are financial incentives for finding and establishing well-run, authorised sites as nationally, local authorities spend £18million a year evicting gypsies.

Consultants will be used by Dorset’s local authorities as a group in their search to find suitable sites by 2011.

They will carry out site selection work and consultation with the gypsy and traveller community and the public.

The Regional Spatial Strategy requires 44 residential pitches and 22 transit pitches in West Dorset.

A total of 44 residential pitches and 21 transit pitches are listed for Purbeck.