Travellers Forcibly Evicted from Campsites, One Significant Win in Securing Caravan Site

22 July 2005

BBC reports from the first few months of 2005 indicated several Gypsy/Traveller families are being forced from illegal campsites. On January 4, 2005, the BBC reported that a group of 20 Traveller families on a site in the Bredon and Eckington area were denied an appeal to stay on the site by the High Court and were ordered to leave their site within the next 5 months. A January 13 report stated that about 70 Travellers in Upchurch who had moved onto a field which they own but do not have planning permission, refused to leave "because they have nowhere to go". Upchurch Parish council has begun legal action to stop development on the site and have the caravans moved. Similarly, a report issued on January 16 stated eight Traveller families who had settled on a car park of a Hilton Hotel in the County Antrim village of Templepatrick in Northern Ireland were forced to leave by the Hilton Hotel group. The families settled in the car park after being moved from their last base in north Belfast. Vivien Harvey of the Traveller Movement stated that the group "have been moved approximately 12 times since last autumn from various sites across Northern Ireland". A January 27 report by the BBC stated that this same group of families was again forcibly moved from a County Antrim business park in Carrickfergus. A report of February 16 stated that a group of Travellers who were camped on a business park in the Northern Ireland region of Dundonald were paid by several businesses to leave the site. The group of Travellers, who denied ever having taken money stated that they were forced to stop on private property due to lack of available legal sites, had moved a short distance to a car sales compound.

Housing Minister Yvette Cooper re-emphasised the need for caravan sites amid a series of cases involving illegal occupation of land by Roma in a January 27 BBC report stating "There are two major problems in the planning system at the moment concerning Gypsy and traveller sites", Cooper said. "Firstly, local authorities are not identifying enough appropriate locations either for private or public sites. And secondly, they do not have enough powers to deal swiftly with developments on inappropriate sites."

Alternatively, according to "PA" News, on April 25, 2005, Henry Smith Jr., a Romani man and his family won a significant legal battle for planning permission to set up their own private caravan site in the Evergreens, near Doking. Judge Mole, Deputy High Court judge, reportedly rejected a legal challenge by Mole Valley District Council that a victory for the Smiths would lead to a domino effect of many other applications for land, which in turn would case serious harm to the metropolitan Green Belt.

Inspector Lucy Drake, after two days of inquiry, indicated in November 2004 that the Smith's case was "special" as the family had "acute" housing needs allowing the appeal against the council's decision a year earlier refusing planning permission. Mark Beard, for the council, said the inspector's decision was "perverse" because the Smiths were not "a very special case."

The judge ruled that the shortage of Roma sites in the area and Mr. Smith's acute family needs outweighed the harm which would be caused to the Green Belt, justifying victory for planning permission.

(PA, BBC)