A FARM that was to have become a high-tech farming training centre has been earmarked for conversion into a gypsy and traveller site in the draft local plan, it has emerged.

Acres Farm, Naburn, which is owned by City of York Council and lies just south of the McArther Glen designer outlet, is one of two sites identified for gypsy and traveller accommodation in the recently published draft local plan.

It has been earmarked for 15 pitches, to be built by 2024, while a second site on Moor Lane, Rufforth, has earmarked for 30 pitches by 2020.

But is has emerged that the Acres Farm site only became available when a deal to sell the land to the University of Nottingham as a "Poultry Training Academy" fell through.

The city council agreed to sell the nine acre site with two plots of buildings to the University, along with an unidentified partner, in February last year. It was to have become part of the new European College of Poultry Veterinary Science and could have created as many as 23 new jobs.

But the council has now confirmed the deal fell through when acceptable terms could not be agreed upon, leading to the land's re-allocation as a travellers' site.

In Rufforth parish, the proposed site lies close to a a prospective solar farm and a previously rejected travellers' site, where MP Julian Sturdy has spoken of concerns about the distance between the site and the landfill and waste recycling centre at Harewood Whin.

He said: "The newly proposed Travellers sites in Rufforth and Naburn are currently within the greenbelt and to my mind, they represent completely inappropriate development.

"I’ve already been receiving representations from anxious constituents in Fulford and Naburn who fear for the impact of the site on community life in their villages."

Parish council chairman Tim Haward has confirmed they will be making representations at the Local Plan working group meeting at the council's West Offices on Monday, when the next step in the local plan's progress to being adopted will be taken.