Landowners 'blackmail' communities into accepting house building by threatening to give sites to Gypsies and Travellers

From the Daily Mail

Landowners are blackmailing communities into accepting house building by threatening to hand sites over Gypsies and Travellers, Tory MPs claimed today.

There were warnings that Traveller groups can ‘acquire highly lucrative planning rights’ which are not available to other people in order to develop land.

Ministers insisted that Gypsies and Travellers deserve the same rights as anyone else but conceded action is needed to ‘ensure that everybody is treated equally’.

During a Westminster Hall debate, MPs complained of ‘massive abuse’ of the system which sees some people become very ‘wealthy’ by claiming to be a Traveller and acquiring land.

The Tories said that constituents felt ‘highly discriminated against’ as planning policy was skewed in favour of Gypsies and Travellers, with one member saying some were even profiting from the ‘lucrative planning rights’.

York Outer MP Julian Sturdy said: ‘Countless constituents have contacted me to express their deep concern about the ability of landowners to use the local planning process to coerce - some might even say blackmail - communities into accepting inappropriate housing developments by threatening to put the land forward for Gypsy and Traveller sites.

‘As people can imagine, that does not help anyone involved in this process, from the Travellers themselves to the affected communities.’
Tory MP Andrew Selous said that the planning system gave Gypsies and Travellers an unfair advantage over settled residents
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Tory MP Andrew Selous said that the planning system gave Gypsies and Travellers an unfair advantage over settled residents

Fellow Conservative MP Andrew Selous said that there was a policy of ‘twin tracks’, which gave Gypsies and Travellers an unfair advantage over settled residents.

He warned this ‘threatens and undermines community cohesion and causes significant fear, distrust and upset to both Travellers and settled residents’.

The South West Bedfordshire MP added: ‘If you can demonstrate or simply declare that you are a Traveller, you acquire highly lucrative planning rights that are not available to the rest of the population and these rights are going to some individuals who are very wealthy or become very wealthy as a result; they're not all vulnerable individuals.

‘This opens the system to massive abuse and some people are seeking to gain from these lucrative planning rights.’

He also challenged the notion that Travellers move around regularly, saying: ‘In reality, it is often the case that settled residents travel more on business than some so-called Travellers do.’

Official figures from the Office for National Statsics last month showed Gypsies are more likely to be unhealthy, jobless and poorly educated than the rest of the population.

The first census of the community has found also revealed that just one in four Gypsies and Irish Travellers lives in a caravan.

Mr Selous said they have the lowest level of work of any ethnicity at 47 per cent, where compared to the national figure of 63 per cent in English and Wales.

While 60 per cent of Gypsy and Traveller adults have no qualifications, the corresponding figure for the rest of the nation is 23 per cent.

Mr Selous said that ‘the current situation is no longer tenable’. He said: ‘I believe that central government is forcing local authorities to take many extremely unpalatable decisions, which are causing a lot of anxiety and anger in both rural and urban communities.’

Robert Syms, Tory MP for Poole agreed, insisting there was ‘a general frustration that giving special status to one category of people tends to trample on the rights of our ordinary, law-abiding, tax-paying constituents who frankly get very angry when they see their lives ... being blighted’.

But Communities and Local Government Minister Brandon Lewis said that members of the Gypsy and Traveller community ‘are members of our community as much as anyone else and do deserve protection and enjoy the same rights’.

He acknowledged however that there was a feeling among some people that there was one law for settled communities and a separate one for Travellers.

‘We certainly do need to work to make sure that everybody is treated equally,’ he said.

He said that the Government's planning reforms seek to achieve three things, provide up-to-date details of authorised sites, a level-playing field for all, and protection of natural heritage and open spaces.

He told MPs: ‘We are determined to make sure that everyone has the ability and aspiration to prosper and we break down the barriers to social mobility with fairness to everybody in the planning system being treated equally and proper.’

Section 225 of the Housing Act 2004 places a duty on local housing authorities to undertake regular assessments of the accommodation needs of Gypsies and Travellers within their area. Local housing authorities are required by law to include the needs of Gypsies and Travellers in their housing strategy.