IN various places across Dorset, local councillors are contending with email overload and phones that never seem to stop ringing.

That’s because of the consultations going on over proposed gypsy and traveller sites.

In 2009, the issue of travellers’ sites had become so intractable that the nine main councils in the area banded together to hire private consultants to look at the issue.

Is it too cynical to say that looked like an attempt to kick the issue into the proverbial long grass? Deferring the whole subject for three years saw councils safely through local elections. It also put things off until after a change of government.

But the new government’s position is unclear. It says it has abolished “top-down” targets on travellers’ sites. Yet councils fear they won’t have their planning strategies approved unless they show they have addressed their local need for sites.

Meanwhile, the consultants’ report which cost the public purse £244,000 has produced a shortlist of sites which are as controversial as ever.

Understandably, a committee of Poole councillors wants to consult the public, not just on the three sites shortlisted for its borough, but on all 23 possible sites identified during the research.

Councils are soon going to have to take some difficult decisions. This time, there may be no long grass left to kick the issue into.