Travellers and Gypsies in Stroud

Meetings over the last 2 days - too many to scribble here - a Safe Water Campaign meeting, a meeting with Greens to discuss a major proposal to the District Council, a meeting with Staverton airport campaigners (see my press release today to Guardian and Independent), a Green party District councillors meeting, a meeting re the brook and a Policy Panel at the District Council on Travellers and Gypsies.....

Photo: Traditional Gypsy caravan at a horse fair

When I was qualifying to be a Social Worker back in 1985 I had a research placement in Southampton looking at issues around Travellers and Gypsies and was fortunate to meet many traveller families. I've had an interest in this area ever since - see for example a letter from 2002.

As I said at the Policy Panel one of the issues that came out then was the lack of authorised sites....22 years on that is exactly what we are still hearing. The conservatives abolished Councils duty to provide sites and Labour have also utterly failed both the traveller population and indeed residents - as many unauthorised sites only cause problems to all.

There are clearly not enough satisfactory sites for travellers which over the years has fostered a deterioration in relations between travellers and local house-dwellers. Indeed Travellers have been more likely to be living next to motorways, landfill sites, rubbish tips or even sewage farms than to be invading green belt. If we were to seek the real culprits of our planning laws we need look no further than many of the big developers. For example planning conditions to protect trees have been blatently ignored as it is cheaper for developers to pay any fines that are rarely imposed than lose valuable building land - councils don't have the staff to do much about such breaches.

However the good news is that at last the Government has recognised the lack of sites - and is taking action - why now? I'm not sure - maybe EU legislation but various policy documents are being pushed forward - the County has employed two lots of consultants to look at the current site provision - one of yesterday evenings presentations was from Colin Davis from Ark consultancy. In Stroud we have no local authority sites and 29 private authorised sites - plus about 24 unauthorised encampments which include people travelling through. The research shows we need to provide 17 pitches more - a lot less than Tewkesbury where many Gypsy and Traveller communities stay - they a have some 122 pitches to find.

Anyhow the Government advice is to seek innovative solutions which may mean a different type of solution for different groups - a more eco-friendly setting for travellers and a more established type site for Gypsies. It will not mean that all 17 pitches are on one site - indeed often the solutions can mean one or two on much smaller sites.

Out of those questioned 63% had lived in the county more than 5 years, 89% had a strong connection to the area and63% didn't want to move from their current site.

It is disappointing that this group of people still face considerable prejudice - the consultant noted 25% felt hostility to their children at local schools. I remember interviewing a senior police officer when I was in Southampton who said he cursed the travellers arriving on one particular unauthorised site as they did regularly - when I asked more he said that they were model citizens and left the site clean - the problem was that every criminal in the region descended on the local homes in the hope that their activities would be blamed on the travellers.

There is still much work but I hope that Stroud now gives this issue some urgency and finds suitable sites - not an easy task - without the sites it will just mean more unauthorised sites and problems for travellers and local residents.