The Traveller Law Reform Project: Press Releases, News and Events

In this edition:
Housing and Regeneration Bill
Jurisdiction in disputes on Mobile Homes Act sites
CLG consultation on other aspects of the Mobile Homes Act
Planning Bill
Education and Skills Bill
Gypsy and Traveller Accommodation Assessments
Parliamentary debates on site provision
Dale Farm
CLG site design guidance
Gypsy Roma Traveller History Month
Single Equality Bill
TLRP AGM
Travellers Advice Team news

View the newsletter here (PDF)

Parliamentary debate on Gypsy and Traveller sites

On 22 May 2008, there was a debate in Parliament about the Final Report of the Independent Task Group on Site Provision and Enforcement for Gypsies and Travellers, which was published in December 2007. There seemed to be continuing cross-party consensus on the need to provide more authorised sites for Gypsies and Travellers. The debate can be found at http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200708/cmhansrd/cm080522
/halltext/80522h0001.htm#08052290000001. On 18 June 2008, James Gray, Conservative MP for North Wiltshire, led a debate in Parliament about Gypsy and Traveller sites in Wiltshire. Iain Wright MP, the Minister with responsibility for Gypsy and Traveller issues at the Department for Communities and Local Government, replied for the Government. You can read the whole debate at http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200708/cmhansrd/cm080618/halltext
/80618h0005.htm#08061892000002. A number of misunderstandings were evident in the debate. TLRP has since written to James Gray MP and the other MPs who spoke. You can read the TLRP letter here.

TLRP response to Government consultation on disputes on Mobile Homes Act sites

The department for Communities and Local Government is currently (July 2008) consulting on proposed changes to the way disputes are resolved on sites covered by the Mobile Homes Act 1983. The Government's preferred option, subject to the views of consultees, is to transfer jurisdiction for all of the matters that can currently go the county court to a residential property tribunal - except cases where the site owner is seeking to terminate the agreement, which would still be dealt with by the county court. If, following consultation, the Government decides to proceed with this option, it also proposes that agreements under the Mobile Homes Act should not be permitted to bind site owners and residents to resolve disputes through arbitration. Once the Housing and Regeneration Bill becomes law, local authority Gypsy and Traveller sites will come under the provisions of the Mobile Homes Act 1983, so the proposed changes to dispute resolution will affect residents of those sites as well. You can read the Government's proposals at http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/housing/parkhomedisputes

At present, some pitch agreements on Mobile Homes Act sites force residents who are in dispute with the site owner to accept arbitration by someone appointed by the site owner. TLRP believes that this is unfair, and the Government agrees. But TLRP disagrees with the Government on how to address this injustice. TLRP believes that residents should always have the right to take a dispute to the county court, where they may be eligible for legal aid if they cannot afford legal representation themselves. The Government believes that all disputes other than those where the site owner seeks possession of the pitch should be resolved by Residential Property Tribunals, where the parties in dispute have no right to legal aid. TLRP believes that site residents will need legal representation in such disputes, and should have the right to legal aid if they cannot afford to pay - so they must have the right to go to a court, not a tribunal.

Click here to read TLRP's response to the Government's consultation paper (PDF)

Education and Skills Bill

The Education and Skills Bill completes its passage through the House of Lords in July 2008.

Click here to read the TLRP commentary on the bill

TLRP response to the Planning Bill

The Planning Bill finished its passage through Commons Public Bill Committee on 5 February 2008 and a revised version of the Bill was published at that time. It will return to the Commons for Report and Third Reading in the near future.

The following briefing has been prepared for the Traveller Law Reform Project with the help of Marc Willers of Garden Court Chambers.

Click here to read the briefing (PDF)

TLRP Commentary on the Housing and Regeneration Bill 2008

Read the commentary on how the Housing and Regeneration Bill 2008 will affect Gypsies and Travellers in England and Wales

Planning Reform Bill and Housing and Regeneration Bill

The Government plans to bring in two new Bills later this year or early next year. They are:
the Planning Reform Bill and
the Housing and Regeneration Bill.

The Planning Reform Bill will simplify some parts of planning law. It aims to make planning authorities better at carrying out the tasks they are supposed to perform. Really big projects like airports and motorways will be taken out of the normal local and regional planning system and given their own national system.

The Housing and Regeneration Bill will merge the Housing Corporation (which gives out money to housing associations so they can build low-cost housing) and English Partnerships (which plans house-building in growth areas like Milton Keynes, Ashford and Cambridgeshire). The aim is to build many more houses, especially lower-cost houses, in the next few years, because there are not enough for everyone who needs one. The Government also says it will use this Bill to bring in security of tenure on publicly-owned Gypsy and Traveller sites.

When these Bills are debated in Parliament there will be a chance for MPs and Peers who are sympathetic to Gypsies and Travellers to try to make changes which would improve site provision and security of tenure.

These Bills could be used to tackle some of the problems which have arisen in putting into practice the Housing Act 2004 and ODPM Circular 01/2006. It was these that gave local authorities a duty to carry out Gypsy and Traveller Accommodation Assessments and make sure that land is set aside for Gypsy and Traveller sites in their areas. But many local authorities are taking a very long time to do these assessments or are doing them badly so they will not have to provide land for sites. Where local authorities do suggest places where Gypsies and Travellers could live, there is often strong opposition from local settled people. Where land is set aside for Gypsy and Traveller sites, the fact that it has planning permission for a site may make it too expensive for most Gypsies and Travellers to buy.

A White Paper (definite proposal) on Planning Reform, Planning for a Sustainable Future, was published on 21 May. You can find it here:

http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/planningandbuilding
/planningsustainablefuture

A Green Paper (consultation paper) on the Housing and Regeneration Bill was published on 23 July. It is called Homes for the Future: more affordable, more sustainable. You can find it here:

http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/housing/homesforfuture

You can read the Traveller Law Reform Project's response to this Green Paper here.

You can also read a fuller commentary on both Bills, prepared by Steve Staines of FFT and Andrew Ryder of ITM, here. A shorter version is available here.

Government's Single Equality Bill threatens to turn the clock back on ethnic minority rights

A new Single Equality Bill

Gypsies and Irish Travellers are recognised as ethnic minorities under Britain's race relations law. In recent years, the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) has helped Gypsies and Irish Travellers in a number of ways, especially through the CRE's regional offices.

At the end of September 2007 the CRE will cease to exist, along with the Equal Opportunities Commission and the Disability Rights Commission. The work of all three commissions will be taken on by a new organisation, the Commission for Equality and Human Rights (CEHR).

In June 2007 the Government published its Discrimination Law Review, making proposals for a new Single Equality Bill which would replace existing equality laws and give the new CEHR a framework for its activities. The Traveller Law Reform Project, along with many other organisations, thinks that the proposals are bad and would weaken existing protection for ethnic minorities, including Gypsies and Irish Travellers.

One of the worst proposals is to remove the duty of public bodies to have 'due regard' in all their actions to the need to remove unlawful discrimination and promote equality of opportunity and good race relations. Instead public bodies would simply have to come up with some self-chosen 'priorities' and work on them 'proportionately' - so if a local authority did not want to bother doing anything to address the discrimination faced by Gypsies and Travellers, it would not have to bother.

You can read the Discrimination Law Review here. http://www.communities.gov.uk/index.asp?id=1511211

Responses have to be in to Communities and Local Government by 4 September.

You can read TLRP's response here.

Planning policy and site provision

During 2006 and 2007 Local Planning Authorities are carrying out Gypsy and Traveller Accommodation Assessments (GTAA). These are intended to determine the level of need for extra residential pitches for Gypsies and Travellers. Regional Planning Bodies are responsible for examining each GTAA, amending it if it is based on inadequate information, and determining the numbers of new pitches to be provided in each district. Local planning authorities are then required by the Housing Act of 2004 and Circular 1/2006 to identify particular pieces of land for the construction of residential Gypsy and Traveller sites.

There is deep concern at the quality of many of the GTAAs, many of which seriously underestimate the numbers of Gypsies and Travellers and the consequent need for new pitches. Friends, Families and Travellers (one of TLRP's member groups) carried out a survey of GTAAs. Read the report here.

Sign the 10 Downing Street Petition

Please sign this new petition to support Gypsies and Travellers rights on local authority caravan sites.
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/travsecure/ or print the petition and send to TLRP

What does it say?
We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to introduce security of tenure on local authority Gypsy/Traveller sites

At present there is no proper security of tenure for Gypsies and Travellers on these sites. However local authority tenants in houses or flats and non-Traveller residents of mobile home parks have security of tenure. In November 2004 the government said they would change the law. They still haven't done so.

What does it mean?
Council tenants (i.e. of flats and houses) who might be evicted have a right to go to court and have their say in answer to the council's reasons for evicting them. The judge hears evidence from the council and from the tenant (and any witnesses either wants to call) and then the judge decides who s/he believes and also whether s/he feels it is reasonable to grant a possession order and evict them. Very similar security of tenure is available to residents of mobile homes parks. The Mobile Homes Act specifically excludes local authority Gypsy sites from its protection.

Give us an example:
In May 2004 the European Court of Human Rights heard a case brought against the United Kingdom by Mr Connors. Mr Connors had been evicted from a local authority site in Leeds. He had hotly contested the councils reasons for evicting him but had not been enabled to put forward any defence. The European Court of Human Rights held that this lack of procedural safeguards meant that Mr Connors human rights had been breached. He was awarded compensation. In November 2004 the government said they would change the law to ensure this didn't happen. Much campaigning and pressure later and...they still haven't changed the law, hence this e-petition.

Who created the petition?
Chris Johnson from the Community Law Partnership, Ruskin Chambers, Birmingham.

Read the New Gypsy and Traveller site Tenancy Agreeements: good practice on licence agreements, by Chris Johnson, TAT

All licence agreements and all matters appertaining to Local Authority sites, must now be seen in the context of the May 27th 2004 decision of the European Court of Human Rights Act in Connors - v - the UK. In this case, the European Court of Human Rights Act held that it was incompatible with Article 8 of the Convention for a Traveller family to be evicted on 28 days’ notice where the underlying reason was nuisance allegations, which the family contested. The Court stated:- “the power to evict without the burden of giving reasons liable to be examined as to their merits by an independent tribunal has not been convincingly shown to respond to any specific goal or to provide any benefit to members of the gypsy community” (paragraph 94). They further stated:- “the Court finds that the eviction of the applicant and his family from the Local Authority site was not attended by the requisite procedural safeguards, namely the requirement to establish proper justification for the serious interference with his rights and consequently cannot be regarded as justified by a ‘pressing social need’ or proportionate to the legitimate aim being pursued” (paragraph 95).

More.....

Project Update:

Following the disbanding of the Gypsy and Traveller Law Reform Coalition (G&TLRC) in April 2006, Friends Families and Travellers, The Gypsy Council, The Irish Traveller Movement and the London Gypsy and Traveller Unit wanted to establish a way of continuing the valuable work on law reform achieved by the Coalition. These four organisations agreed to set up the Traveller Law Reform Project. They have since been joined by the Canterbury Gypsy Support Group.

This project will keep the aims of the G&TLRC – to bring about positive changes in the law in relation to the rights and needs of all the Gypsy and Traveller communities – and will monitor the implementation of current legislation.

We will work closely with the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Traveller Law Reform.

The Travellers Aid Trust has provided funding for two years for the employment of a part-time Policy Development Officer, who began work in mid-February 2007.

The Policy Development Officer is Richard Solly, who previously worked at the Churches' Commission for Racial Justice (CCRJ).

Traveller Law Reform Project
c/o London Gypsy and Traveller Unit
6 Westgate Street
London E8 3RN .

Tel: 07956 450916