The shortage of residential sites for Gypsies and Travellers is causing serious problems for both travelling and settled communities (“Nomad’s land”, 3 September, page 22). When the duty for councils to provide sites was repealed in 1994, the government called on local authorities to help Travellers provide their own sites.

The response fell a long way short of demand, and some Gypsy/Traveller families bought land in unsuitable places, moved on to it and sought planning permission. This has led to a rapid increase in unauthorised encampments, causing inconvenience to those living in housing and provoking bad relations between Travellers and residents.

The shortage of sites has had a negative impact on many Travellers, who can find nowhere to stop lawfully and become homeless. Being continually on the move from one unauthorised site to another adversely affects their access to education, health and other public services, transmitting their deprivation down the generations.

These problems can be solved. If councils had a duty to provide and facilitate sites – coupled with the changes in the Planning & Compulsory Purchase Act, designed to ensure land is available for development, whether by Travellers, social landlords or local authorities – the government would ensure that the few thousand places needed by 2007 would be achieved. Such a duty is needed to ensure that Travellers who cannot afford to buy land and develop it are not left on the roadside.

The Housing Bill gives parliament the opportunity for creating the solution this week. An amendment introducing the duty is to be debated, and it has the support of the Commission for Racial Equality, the National Farmers Union, the Association of Chief Police Officers, Shelter, the Children’s Society and the Local Government Association.

We further propose that under the new planning system, local authorities facilitate land swaps, so Travellers owning and living on land that is not suitable for development can exchange it for a similar area on which planning permission would be granted, thus avoiding the expense and trauma of eviction.

These policies will achieve a “win-win” result, benefiting Travellers and the settled community.

Lord Eric Avebury, secretary of the all-party parliamentary group for Traveller law reform

Source

Housing Today