Councils reject Traveller sites

From Inside Housing

Developers could lose out on funds earmarked to build nearly 500 Traveller pitches across England because they are struggling to secure planning permission.

Unpublished Homes and Communities Agency figures, obtained by Inside Housing, revealed just 101 pitches of the 597 allocated funding outside London have been granted planning permission since 2012.

If sites cannot be completed by March 2015 they will not receive any funding, meaning the government could struggle to spend the £36 million it has allocated to pitches.

The HCA hopes to re-allocate funds to new schemes if the delays mean pitches cannot be delivered on time.

Developers warn they will struggle to do so in the face of local opposition, unless councils are forced to grant permission by the communities secretary.

As part of its overhaul of the planning system in April 2012 the government scrapped regional targets, instead requiring councils to include allocations for Traveller pitches in their local plans.

Gill Brown, project officer at the Traveller Law Reform Project, said the ‘worrying’ figures showed the government was failing to ensure sufficient allocation.

Andrew Redfern, chief executive of Framework, which is waiting for planning permission on 55 pitches in the midlands, said: ‘To get delivery the government has to tell local authorities and not ask them.’

Paul Price, corporate director of Tendring Council, said it would be inappropriate for central government to set mandatory targets as local authorities best understood local need.

Alistair Allender, chief executive of Elim Homes, which is about to submit a planning application for pitches in north Somerset, said there was a danger many applications could face lengthy appeal processes that would not be completed by 2015.

Marc Willers, a barrister who works on Traveller cases, said a statutory duty was necessary to address the ‘severe shortage’ of pitches.