New Planning Policy
Guidance, its context and its impact
Context
Caravan Sites Act 1968
Created a
duty for local authorities to provide caravan sites for Gypsies residing in or
resorting to their area. Never enforced,
and never implemented by some authorities, it nevertheless resulted in a
reduction in unauthorised encampments, and the provision of approximately 300
sites, providing about 5,000 pitches by the time the relevant sections of the
Act were repealed.
Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994
Removed the
duty to provide sites, and resulted in an almost complete halt in the provision
of local authority sites.
The
rationale was that Gypsies and Travellers should provide their own sites, which
many attempted to do. However, planning
law and local prejudice have combined to create a severe limiting effect on new
sites, and many who have won planning permission on appeal have only temporary
planning permission.
Created a
criminal offence if anyone remained on land where they had parked up or
returned to it, after being directed to move. (A police direction did not
require a court order. This was so
draconian, and placed such stress on Travellers’ health, welfare and
educational opportunities that many police forces have been sparing in the use
of this power.) Local authorities and others had the option of obtaining a
court order, which could also result in a criminal conviction, followed by
prison, a substantial fine, and/or the seizing of living accommodation if not
complied with. This power has been used so extensively, that families have
suffered a constant cycle of evictions, with serious consequences for their
well-being, access to health care, access to education, and opportunities for
social inclusion. Many Travellers now find travelling impossible for these
reasons.
Housing Act 2004
Required
local authorities to assess the accommodation needs of Gypsies and Travellers
when drawing up their local plans.
The Housing and Planning Bill 2015/16
Contains a
clause (Section 5, clause 84) which removes the requirement for local
authorities to carry out an accommodation needs assessment for Gypsies and
Travellers.
Planning Policy for
Traveller Sites 2015
Ø
Defines Gypsy or Traveller to exclude people who
have settled permanently.
Ø
Makes planning permission for sites on Green
Belt land almost impossible. Exceptional
needs such as disability, ill health or old age will no longer be considered to
“outweigh the harm to the Green Belt”. The government acknowledge that this
will particularly impact single women with children, whose opportunities for
mobile occupations are much fewer than those of men, but chose to include this
part of the policy regardless of the
vulnerable families who would be affected.
Ø
Local authorities are required to “strictly
limit development in open countryside.”
Ø
Having stopped on land before seeking planning
permission will count against applicants.
Impact (quoted from Johnson, Ruston
and Willers, 2015)
“Faced with relentless enforcement action taken against
unauthorised encampments many Gypsies and Travellers will decide that it is no longer
possible to continue travelling and will seek planning permission for a site.
Yet in order to stand some chance of getting planning
permission they will have to show that are still travelling! It’s a classic
vicious circle of the Government’s own making!
“The position of those Gypsies, Travellers and Travelling
Showpeople who are too old or too ill to continue travelling is even more
problematic. They will no longer fall within the planning definition of
“gypsies and travellers” and “travelling showpeople” and will stand no real
chance of obtaining planning permission for a caravan site despite the fact
that they may be in greater need of a site than younger and more mobile members
of their respective communities!
“We believe that these policy changes may be challengeable on
grounds that they are discriminatory and violate the rights of Gypsies,
Travellers and Travelling Showpeople which are protected by Article 8 of the
European Convention on Human Rights. We hope that those people most affected will
take action to force the Government to reverse these policy changes and that
this blog will encourage them to do so.”
Expressions of
concern from the Traveller communities
Of most concern has been the issue of people’s ethnic identity being
denied.
“If I’m not a Gypsy, what am I?”
The future for younger members of the community appears especially problematic.
If they have grown up on a settled site, it seems their ethnic identity will
not be recognised, and they could be denied the right to even apply for
planning permission for a site, or for a place on an existing site. “What’s
going to happen?” said one young mother. “Are they going to tell us we aren’t
Travellers any more, and bulldoze the site?”
Where authorities have accepted that they have a resident local
population of ethnic Travellers, some quiet settled Traveller sites have been
“tolerated”, rather than given planning permission. “I’ve been on a tolerated
site for over thirty years now,” said one old age pensioner. “We just don’t know what’s going to happen to
us.”
Other Traveller sites have experienced a stressful series of
time-limited planning permissions. If
the residents of these sites have made the effort to settle, and quietly
pursued their local occupations, it seems they could be penalised by being
re-defined as not-Travellers, and denied a renewal of their planning
permission. “They’re trying to legislate us off the face of the earth,” said
one such person.
When the organist played "The Old Rugged Cross" in church this morning, I thought it was possibly a little nod towards the spirituality of the Romani people, and was momentarily comforted. But when I asked him, it was in fact a memory of a Billy Graham crusade.
