WORK has begun on a “perverse” £3.5million revamp of the traveller site where PC Andrew Harper’s killers hid.
It comes despite the hero cop’s family pleading for the plan to be scrapped.
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The officer, 28, who had just wed wife Lissie, died when he was dragged along the road by a car by three teenage quad bike thieves in 2019.
His killers, Henry Long, 19, and Albert Bowers and Jessie Cole, both 18, were arrested at the Four Houses Corner site in Ufton Nervet, Berkshire.
The trio — later convicted of manslaughter and jailed — had hid in the camp, where they destroyed evidence.
In 2020, the dilapidated plot was abandoned and the travellers rehoused.
But earlier this year, West Berkshire Council approved the revamp, featuring 17 double-berth caravan pitches with two parking spaces each, provisions for electric car chargers and a children’s play area.
PC Harper’s mum Debbie Adlam described the decision as “disrespectful” and accused the local authority of “stamping all over Andrew’s memory”.
She wrote and told them she goes there “as my only place to feel I am close to him” and “will worry over the likelihood of vandalising the tributes we place”.
Now aerial photographs show the beginnings of concrete bases for caravans, with diggers on site.
Tory councillor Ross Mackinnon said the taxpayer-funded scheme is “an insult to PC Harper’s memory”.
He called on the Lib Dem-run local authority to scrap the project and restore the site to nature, with a memorial to Andrew.
He told The Sun: “It just seems perverse to redevelop the camp. It’s against public decency to spend nearly £4million refurbishing it.”
Thames Valley Police objected to the plan, saying the site had long been used for “criminal activities”.
Council deputy leader Denise Gaines said: “We effectively had no choice.
This site has been allocated to travellers since at least the 1960s and is important for us to deliver much-needed traveller accommodation.
“We are, of course, acutely aware of the history.”
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