Gypsy/Travellers Face Continuing Threats of Eviction in UK
11 March 2005
On November 2, 2004 the BBC reported that the Taunton Deane Borough Council announced its intention to apply for a court injunction to remove sixteen Traveller families from their site at Somerset in North Curry. The families owned the land but had reportedly begun building homes on the site without having obtained planning permission. On October 29, the council issued a notice to the families that they must cease building and directed them to restore the land to its former agricultural use. The council reportedly delayed injunction plans because there were "human rights issues to be considered".
Also according to the BBC of November 2, the High Court issued a temporary injunction preventing the eviction of Travellers living without permission on twenty-two plots at the Smithy Fen Traveller site at Cottenham in South Cambridgeshire. The injunction prohibits the South Cambridgeshire District Council from evicting the affected persons until a hearing on the issue takes place. The injunction follows an earlier injunction granted the District Council by appeal court judges on September 17, 2004, against "persons unknown" in connection with an ongoing dispute over the size of the Smithy Fen Travellers' site, according to a BBC report of the same day (background information is available at: http://www.errc.org/cikk.php?cikk=2113). The injunction permitted the Council to remove any persons living on the site without permission and a deadline of November 1 midnight had been set for the eviction.
In other news, according to a September 27, 2004 notice by the National Association of Gypsy Women (NAGW), the Oxfordshire County Council in southern England decided to hand management of six Gypsy/Traveller sites over to police. Following protests by Gyspy/Traveller organisations in the UK and Ireland, no evictions took place and the Oxfordshire County Council agreed to devise new license agreements that would satisfy all parties, according to information provided to the ERRC by the NAGW on October 21, 2004.
Earlier, on September 9, 2004, the BBC reported that the Gloucestershire County Council served formal eviction notice on a group of Travellers living on National Trust land near Sherbourne leased to the Council, which they have occupied since November 2003. The Travellers were told they should move voluntarily or face legal action. Councillor Colin Hay was quoted as having stated that the move followed a "significant number of complaints" to the Council, the National Trust and the police.
As a result of major accommodation problems facing Gypsy/Travellers in the UK, proposed amendments to the Housing Bill drafted by the Commission for Racial Equality and tabled by Lord Avebury and Baroness Whitaker were debated in Parliament in September 2004. The amendments called for a statutory duty on local councils to provide, or facilitate the provision, of an adequate number of sites, and for improved security of tenure on sites run by local authorities. On November 7, 2004, the BBC reported that the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) stated that no decision had been made and indicated that it was unlikely to force councils to act because making councils provide sites was "not necessarily appropriate", "a duty has been tried before and often did not produce sufficient or appropriate provision" and "a duty which relates solely to the Gypsy and Traveller community reinforces the view that they should be dealt with outside the mainstream housing system."
(BBC, ERRC, NAGW)
