Leicestershire Councils set for Dale Farm-style Traveller conflict?
Release date: 26/09/2011
"Leicestershire Councils set for Dale Farm-style Traveller conflict if they fail to quickly help the Traveller community find official sites," says leading planning lawyer.
A leading planning lawyer has warned that Councils in Leicestershire must act quickly to identify more official sites for the local Traveller and Gypsy community to avoid repeats of the Dale Farm eviction fiasco seen in Essex this week.
Paul Hunt, planning lawyer at law firm Harvey Ingram, has acted for local authorities and for Traveller families in disputes over unauthorised sites. He says:
"I am concerned that councils in this region are not doing enough to identify sites that can accommodate Traveller and Gypsy families. A lack of designated sites means the families will seek to meet their needs on their own sites and quickly establish themselves within the local community, which means that removal through the planning process can be combated by invoking the European Convention on Human Rights.
"The Traveller and Gypsy communities quite rightly want a location where they control access and occupation. It is far easier for them to buy a piece of land and move onto it without planning permission than to wait for councils to identify sites they consider suitable but which may not be controlled by the Traveller and Gypsy communities themselves.
"This means that councils across Leicestershire face the same problems we have seen in Basildon. I fear that without the prompt identification of land which the Travellers and Gypsies consider suitable and is available then we will see more illegal encampments and more Dale Farm-style evictions here."
Councils struggling to identify suitable sites
Mr Hunt says that the issue of identifying official sites for Travellers and Gypsies has been batted back and forth between central Government and local authorities. Leicestershire authorities, like many other councils across the country, have struggled to identify sites that would be acceptable to both the Travellers and Gypsies and to the settled community.
"Across the country Travellers appeal against enforcement notices and the Planning Inspectorate often grants temporary planning permission on unauthorised sites due to a lack of official sites being available, at least until such sites are made available," says Mr Hunt.
"This leads Travellers to feel they can settle on the land and establish themselves within the community. After all, Travellers have a strong need and wish to have a home onto which they can welcome other members of their community. But this often not causes friction amongst the wider neighbourhood.
"The Government is now asking councils to identify sites based on their own assessment of need, but most have failed to identify such sites and we now have a situation where unofficial sites are often the norm for Travellers.
"Councils in Leicestershire should grasp the nettle and quickly identify sites that Travellers will find acceptable, otherwise we will start to see the kind of prolonged cycle of evictions, appeals and Court challenges witnessed at Dale Farm in Essex.
"The Traveller community has very little faith in being treated fairly by the planning system or in Councils identifying suitable sites for them. Councils must work with Travellers and the wider community to identify acceptable sites while at the same time using the stronger enforcement action powers the Government is proposing to bestow on them only where circumstances really justify such action."
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