REGIONAL planners who want Christchurch council to provide 60 pitches for travellers in the borough have been accused of "fuzzy thinking" by councillors and town hall officers.

As part of the evolving spatial strategy for south-west England the regional assembly has set out in a consultation document suggested quotas for permanent and transit pitches each council in the region should provide by 2011.

For Christchurch the figures are 33 residential and 27 transit pitches but borough bosses argue only half that number are needed and the council should be given more time to assess demand and meet the actual requirement for traveller and gypsy camp space.

In a presentation to the council on Tuesday borough community planning and policy manager Simon Trueick said the issue of travellers was clearly contentious and the council had had bad experiences of illegal encampments.

But he said provision of pitches for travellers was a legal requirement for the council, which currently has no authorised sites.

And it would have the benefit of speeding up removal of illegal camps if police were able to direct travellers to recognised sites in or near the borough.

Mr Trueick said his concern was that the regional assessment of the number of pitches needed in Christchurch was based on inaccurate data and the council's own figures suggested only 23 residential and 13 transit pitches were required.

Council leader Cllr Alan Griffiths said the regional figures had been "plucked out of the air" and there was no justification for the number of pitches being suggested.

He said provision of pitches for the small number of travellers coming to the borough would have to be made at the expense of thousands of local families on the housing waiting list.

Cllr David Jones said the assessment was the product of "fuzzy thinking" by political minds that did not recognise life in rural England and Cllr Sally Derham Wilkes said the estimates for the number of gypsy and traveller families in the borough was based on hearsay rather than hard facts.

Councillors voted unanimously to lodge a formal objection to the scale of traveller pitch provision and timescale for compliance in the borough's response to the consultation on the draft regional spatial strategy.