Residents in the north-east have criticised Aberdeenshire Council’s approach to providing travellers’ accommodation.
More than half of those questioned in a major study said the current system wasn’t working, with many blaming it for problems with the settled community.
The citizen’s panel survey spoke to 1,284 people on behalf of Aberdeenshire Community Planning Partnership.
Most people want the council to provide more accommodation for travellers in the form of stopover sites.
More than half (56%) of those asked said the current approach was ineffective.
Douglas Edwardson, the authority’s head of housing, said the feedback would form an integral part of Aberdeenshire’s traveller site development strategy, which is due to be published in early 2015.
“We hope that an increase in well-managed authorised traveller sites will not only meet the accommodation needs of the travelling community, but will also help reduce tensions between the settled and travelling communities,” he added.
Elsewhere, other facilities provided by the council were found to be popular.
More than half (58%) are members of a library and of those 75% are satisfied with their branch, although the survey suggested the authority needed to do more to publicise the full range of services.
The Grampian Transport, Aberdeenshire Farming and Scottish Lighthouses museums were visited frequently and all boasted an approval rating of above 80%.
Council leader Jim Gifford said: “The level of participation and the comments made by panel members in the survey encouragingly reveals their continuing interest and involvement in their community leisure services.
“Once again we welcome the results of the survey with regard to the assistance it provides in planning and adapting the services for the future in Aberdeenshire.”