A site to behold

From Inside Housing

Gypsies and Travellers had seemed destined to end their outcast status by being given permanent sites to live on, but as Pete Apps finds out, many local councils are scuppering the plans, making a return to the sort of scenes seen at Dale Farm more likely

‘They’re trying to wash the Gypsy out of us,’ says Marian Mahone, an Irish Traveller who spent her young life moving around southern England, before settling on a council pitch in Bow, east London.

‘I don’t think [the government] will be happy until [it has] done that.’

Since the mid-1990s, there has been no legal duty for local authorities in England to provide pitches for Gypsy and Traveller communities to live. And granting permission for a site remains one of the most politically toxic things a council can do.

This means there are not enough legal pitches for Travellers, and their options are often limited to illegal roadside pitches - which carry a constant threat of eviction and no access to services such as GPs and schools.

‘In certain parts of the country, the life expectancy of a Traveller is 48,’ says Helen Jones of the Leeds Gate project, which works with Traveller communities in the city. ‘They are paying a price with their lives for being our political football.’

Regional targets
The last government had set out to create regional targets for pitches in England, but these were scrapped in 2012 under the banner of localism, with local authorities told to assess their own need in local plans. Effectively, the buck has been passed, and councils are none too keen to act.

As Inside Housing revealed last week, of the 597 new pitches in England allocated funding by the Homes and Communities Agency from 2011 to 2015, only 101 have planning permission. And the clock is ticking to get them completed before the funding is returned to the pot in March 2015.

Meanwhile, communities secretary Eric Pickles has begun calling in decisions for many sites that affect green belt land, stalling the progress of private applications.

Without more legal pitches, the ugly scenes at Dale Farm in Basildon in 2011, where police removed illegal pitches following years of dispute, are likely to become more common.

So does the government have to force councils to act? And what will it mean for Traveller communities if they don’t? The answer to the first question, from the developing housing associations delivering the sites, is an exasperated ‘yes’.

Town & Country Housing Group received £1.3 million from the HCA to provide 15 traveller pitches in Maidstone, Kent, last year. But the proposals never even made it to planning officials.

Adrian Heys, the group’s head of development, says: ‘We worked with the council to identify a suitable site and agreed terms with the landowner with a view to submitting a planning application.

‘The agreement fell through before an application could be submitted due to local resident opposition,’ he adds.

The 9,000-home association is looking for a second site, and is hopeful of submitting a planning application in the coming months. But with 18 months to go until the deadline, time is short.

Andrew Redfern, chief executive of housing association Framework, which is waiting for planning permission on 55 pitches in the midlands, says: ‘The problem is localism. Any government that imagines you can deliver a programme of Traveller pitches on the basis of a localist policy is living in a fantasy world.

‘The government has to set targets. Unless it’s mandatory, most local authorities will just choose not to do it.’

Alistair Allender, chief executive of Elim Homes, which is about to submit a planning application for 29 pitches in north Somerset, explains that finding land where the owner is willing to sell which is both politically acceptable and suitable for a pitch is a tortuous process.

‘These difficulties rule out about 90 per cent of sites straight away,’ he says. ‘Then once you do go to consultation, people suddenly come out of the woodwork and shout the bid down because of the underlying prejudices against Gypsies and Travellers.’

‘It’s a danger for the whole programme,’ says Mr Redfern. ‘If there is underspend, then the government could well decide the money is not needed in the next spending round.’

John Major’s legacy
The statutory duty to provide Traveller pitches ended with former prime minister John Major’s Criminal Justice and Public Order Act in 1994 and this government’s move to scrap regional targets has removed the last external obligation on local councils.

Planner Catriona Riddell spent months working on the panel developing the strategy for the south east of England, which was due to be published in summer 2010, but never was because of the change of government.

The panel would have recommended the construction of 2,133 pitches in the south east of England by 2016. The current HCA programme hopes to deliver 89 in the east and south east by 2015. Of these, 23 currently have planning permission.

Finding suitable sites is also a huge stumbling block.

‘A lot of Gypsy and Traveller families these days want to live around the big cities, and that cuts straight into green belt land,’ says Ms Riddel.

‘It’s why the latest comments from Eric Pickles criticising local authorities for a lax attitude towards protecting the green belt really doesn’t help.’

In July, Mr Pickles announced he would ‘consider’ calling in any Traveller site in green belt land ‘to test the relevant policies at a national level’.

GYPSIES_3

Source: Rex Features

‘Mr Pickles doesn’t want Gypsy and Traveller sites in the green belt and in his view too many planning inspectors are granting consent,’ says planning consulant Simon Ruston.

He explains this approach is overriding one punitive measure introduced in new planning guidance - that if councils do not have a five-year supply in place along with an assessment of need this would be a ‘significant consideration’ in favour of granting permission for temporary sites.

Inside Housing revealed in June that only four of the 115 councils surveyed had complied with this.

The lack of authorised pitches results in Travellers living by the roadside, or in illegal pitches while their applications are considered.

Another aspect of Mr Major’s legacy is that in 1994 police were given powers to move on groups of people with only 24 hours’ notice. This was ostensibly aimed at rave culture, but has been used against Gypsies and Travellers ever since. The constant evictions that result are a huge cost for local authorities, and Ms Jones says she knows of one Traveller who was evicted 50 times in six months.

Ms Jones’ charity has been involved in pioneering a scheme called ‘negotiated stopping’ - which involves Travellers being given permission to use a site for a certain defined period of time, and then having to move on. It is more palatable to the local community, which makes it easier to get through the planning system.

It also means Travellers can access GPs and schools. And while it requires constant work and a great deal of political will from the council, Leeds Council is believed to have saved £100,000 on evictions and clean-up in just two years of the scheme.

Statutory force
In the long term, though, most agree that the only answer is a statutory duty. As Gill Brown, project officer for Traveller Law Reform, says: ‘Nobody wants the horror of evictions, nobody wants to see another Dale Farm.’

Specialist Gypsy and Traveller barrister Marc Willers agrees, but says the government, in England at least, lacks the ‘political will’ to take that step.

A spokesperson for the Communities and Local Government department said the government had abolished ‘top down targets which built nothing but resentment’.

The Local Government Association said 70 per cent of councils had local plans in place and people who live near potential sites should have a say.

Frieda Schicker, secretary of the London Gypsy and Traveller Unit, says no new pitches have been built in the capital since the last duty ended in 1994.

‘If this doesn’t change, what it means is quite simply the destruction of a way of life,’ she says.

Does Ms Mahone believe this may be the ultimate outcome?

‘It’s happening now. People are being forced into houses. Why can’t we just be allowed to live within our own culture? That’s all we want.’
A different story in Wales

In Wales, it is a different story. The Labour regime in Wales has recently announced it will prosecute local councils who fail to provide enough sites. Julie Morgan, assembly member for Cardiff North, who campaigned for the change, says: ‘We didn’t really have any problems in the assembly. People realise there has to be site provision to stop illegal sites and all the problems that come with them. The best way is to put a duty on local authorities.’

In anticipation of the duty, due to be introduced in the autumn, Cardiff and Swansea are already looking for new sites.

In Scotland the situation is similar to England, with local authorities required to assess need and prepare local housing strategies to implement them. There is no statutory duty to provide sites.

The Northern Ireland Housing Executive is responsible for the provision and management of sites for the Traveller community. A new needs assessment is due this year.