Are Gypsies and Travellers facing an impossible situation? They are evicted from sites because they have no planning permission. But a shortage of authorised developments means they often have nowhere else to go. And could a new law make things worse?
The Coalition Government’s proposed Localism Bill aims to give more power and responsibility to local councils and communities for planning decisions. This includes tougher action against people who abuse planning laws.
If localism is to make the planning system “more democratic and more effective”, who are the winners and losers? If there are not enough legal sites for Gypsies and Travellers, are they forced to ignore planning laws? If they are evicted, where do they go and what happens to children’s education and people’s access to healthcare? And what is the impact of illegal sites on the wider community?
I’m exploring these issues for a project that will complete my MA in multi-media journalism at Bournemouth University. Please join in the debate.
Marta Clayton
I’m no expert on gypsies and travellers, but like most people I am aware of both the general public opposition to traveller sites and of social, health and education problems amongst other characteristics of a socially and economically excluded group of people. Linking the issue to the localism agenda is very timely and entirely pertinent to many reservations that I have about recent policy approaches. For example, localism can have positive connotations, but can also sail dangerously close to parochialism. This can appear particularly where neighbourhoods and parishes are given powers to determine their own future plans and land use development without recourse to wider societal aims, planning objectives or other strategic objectives. The new Neighbourhood Plan process looks very vulnerable to this kind of inward looking approach, not least because it is a process that looks capable of being ‘captured’ by highly motivated minorities who are able to garner community support by emotive and not necessarily rational argument – such as that which has always permeated discussion of society’s responsibility towards gypsies and travellers.
Thanks for your comment, Steve. I had an interesting conversation today with Richard Bennett, former chairman of the Local Government Association’s Gypsy & Traveller Task Group. He made the point that under the Housing Act 2004, local authorities still have a duty to carry out accommodation needs assessments and provide a solution. The Localism Bill cannot remove that obligation. That said, some councils will have more difficulty than others in finding suitable land, for example, an entirely urban local authority. Richard was talking just yesterday to a unitary authority that was caught between the sea and a national park and finding a land for a transit site with those constraints was proving rather difficult!