Lawyers were forced to censor hundreds of racist comments left by members of the public on Croydon Council plans for new traveller sites, it has emerged.

In November the council invited people to submit comments on its Croydon Local Plan, which included controversial proposals for a number of new housing developments in Shirley and the creation of two new permanent traveller sites near Coombe Farm in South Croydon.

A cabinet report reveals that 771 of those submissions - 9.4 per cent of total – were scrubbed from the final consultation document after council lawyers found them to contain "derogatory language about Gypsies and Travellers".

During a debate over the local plan last night, Conservative leader Tim Pollard said Labour had "hung people out to dry" by including the names of those who made racist submissions in the final report.

He said: "My point was not that you shouldn't delete them if the lawyers think they are inappropriate, my point is that you have kind of hung people out to dry by not allowing anybody to form their own opinion about whether they were or weren't being racist, or whether it was just clumsy language."

Cllr Pollard's words were met with loud applause from the public gallery, which was packed with those highly critical of the council's plans for the south of the borough.

The names had in fact been removed from the digital version of the report "in the last few days" following a complaint by one individual named, a Croydon Council spokesman said today.

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Seemingly unaware the names had been removed, deputy council leading Alison Butler, who the cabinet member with oversight of the Local Plan, was unrepentant.

She said: "I certainly agree that we have to look at that [including the names].

"But those that haven’t gone through are well beyond clumsy language....They weren’t simply just on the edge of things. We have had legal advice on them, they were actually to a point where they contravened the Equalities Act 2010 where they were… racist and discriminatory."

As Cllr Butler finished speaking, a member of the public who gave his name as Douglas stood up and demanded for his name to removed from the report, threatening to “issue a writ against Croydon Council”.

Further shouts of “take the names off” and "you're still missing the point" rang out from the public gallery as Cllr Butler and council leader Tony Newman spoke on the Local Plan.

Former Conservative leader Mike Fisher said that, while he had not read all the submissions, he had read a number from residents associations in his ward that had been censored - none of which he thought were racist.

Referring to a conversation earlier in the evening about fears over a spike in racist behaviour following last month's Brexit vote, he added: “We do need to be very careful about the language that we use, and that includes the deputy leader of the council."

Cllr Fisher accused the council of "exacerbating the problem by calling people racist in this chamber" - words met with loud applause from the public gallery.

One comment that was not censored and was published in the final report read: "Please note that my family and I are absolutely against a site being set up. We had trouble with 'travellers' very recently are very aware of the trouble they cause."

As a result of the public consultation, plans for the two travellers sites near Coombe Farm have been dropped in favour of one site at the Purley Oaks depot.

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