Wednesday 19 June 2013

Pregnant Gypsy 'forced to live' without toilet and shower block in Epsom - Surrey

From Your Local Guardian

A pregnant Gypsy says she is being forced to urinate behind her caravan on a council site because no toilet and shower block has been provided.

Tina Price, who is pregnant with twins due in under a month, said she washes her two-year-old son in a basin at the caravan site in Kiln Lane, Epsom.

Ms Price said: "It’s horrible to run behind your caravan to have a wee. I’m forever cleaning with bleach."

Ms Price and her cousin Tom Eastwood, who have adjoining plots on the site, have lived without utility blocks for nearly two years.

She said: "You pay your rent and it’s supposed to be there. Everyone else has got one. I don’t believe in using the toilet inside where we cook and eat."

Mr Eastwood, who has three daughters and two sons, said they were told utility blocks would put in by 2013 but a council officer keeps saying the council does not have enough money.

He said his whole family share one caravan bathroom. He said: "In the morning everyone is rushing and there is no room. It’s hard to live there. I have to go to a friend’s place to have a wash."

The cousins raised the issue with the Surrey Gypsy Traveller Communities Forum at Epsom Town Hall last month.

PC John Hockley, co-chairman of the forum, said he is following up the matter and they would review progress at a forthcoming management meeting.

PC Hockley said: "Generally speaking most Traveller caravans are immaculate and hygiene is very, very key to that.

"Toilets are seldom used and instead Travellers almost always have a utility block. It’s culturally and traditionally what most of them do.

"That’s why I was surprised to hear there were no utility blocks on these plots."

A Surrey County Council spokesman said the families were aware from the outset that there would be no utility blocks and their chalet caravans had bathroom, toilet and kitchen facilities.

He said: "We have provided connections to these facilities at no cost to the tenants. They have both bought small sheds to house a washing machine and tumble dryer externally."

He added: "There were utility blocks when the site was full in 2007 but the weekend after a £150,000-refurbishment by one of the families they were so badly vandalised that they had to be knocked down as they were unsafe."

At the meeting at Epsom Town Hall last month, attended by Surrey's new assistant commissioner for equality and diversity, Councillor Shiraz Mirza, PC Hockley said the forum gave people the chance to raise problems and access information about services on offer.

He said negative content in TV programs increased the stereotypes and stigmas about the Gypsy and Traveller community.

He said: "By doing this we can at least help to break down the barriers and let people know this is actually a community that needs help and support and is trying to reach out. But we all need to do our bit to meet in the middle."

Mary Smith, 72, who lives in a flat in Woking, said she came to the forum to hear what was happening among the Gypsies and to see if they would get any new caravan sites.

She said: "There’s a shortage of sites. We have got a lot of grandchildren who are going to have nowhere to go."

She said they wanted to live according to their own culture, adding: "We are Gypsies, we don’t belong in houses. We were born Gypsies so that’s what we are."

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.