The ‘ghettoisation’ of Travellers at Patcham amounts to prejudice - Brighton and Hove

From Conservative Cllr Graham Cox

Last Friday Mike Weatherley MP hosted a consultation meeting about the Green Party proposal to build a new ‘static’ Traveller site at Patcham.

Patcham already has a large transit site at Horsdean. This new site, consisting of 16 permanent ‘mobile homes’ and toilet and shower blocks, will be funded by the taxpayer. The site chosen is north of the bypass, in the South Downs National Park.

One of the arguments being used to support its construction is that it will lead to an end of illegal encampments on our public parks. Unfortunately there is no evidence to support this assertion. Many of us can remember that was the argument used for the transit site, and yet since the Green Party came to power the number of encampments on parks (such as at Greenleas this Easter) has got worse.

Those who drove their caravans onto the football pitches at Greenleas have a record of continually trespassing on sports fields and parks, and engaging in anti-social behaviour whilst there. Flytipping has occurred nearby and the parks left in a terrible mess afterwards.

When encampments ocurred at Greenleas and the nature reserve at Withdean park there spaces on the transit site. despite this and the sensitive nature of the sites the City Council did not request the Police to use their powers to move them on. This pretty useless response leads us to have no faith in assurances that it would be different in the event of another site being built.

There is little doubt that the group who parked on Greenleas have no intention of using a publicly provided site even if built.

We are urging the Green party to think again on this, and hope that labour will not support them either. Building a taxpayer funded site on the South Downs, deliberately separating it from the settled community north of the bypass, amounts to the ghettoising of an ethnic group. It is not even in the Travellers interest that this site is built, and I have yet to see any reliable evidence that they even support its construction.

Far better that the Travellers who wish to settle down (for surely that is what a static site implies) are allowed to find their own small plots which they purchase and apply for planning permission to build on in the normal way. Once again we have the Council telling the Travellers what is good for them – doing things to Travellers rather than helping them to help themselves.

Some film of the meeting can be found here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuImFWobCg4