Housing Minister unveils new bid to crack down on unauthorised traveller sites

The Government has announced plans to “tackle travellers who flout planning rules and abuse the system”, with a crackdown on unauthorised sites.

The Department for Communities and Local Government said: “Where travellers set up large-scale unauthorised sites, they can cause misery for neighbours as well as significant costs to the council.

“Local authorities are then faced with the difficult choice of taking early enforcement action - meaning they are required to meet the needs of travellers being moved on - or simply leave them to continue living on sites without planning permission.”

The DCLG added that, under the proposals, there would be “no assumption that councils facing this problem in their area would have to plan to meet that need, which has only arisen because of large-scale unauthorised sites”.

Instead, councils in this situation would only be required to plan to provide sites for the numbers of travellers they could reasonably expect, it suggested.

The consultation, which can be viewed here, also proposes amending the planning definition of travellers to remove the words “or permanently” to limit it to those who have a nomadic habit of life.

“This would mean any application for a permanent site by someone who has stopped physically travelling would be considered in the same way as an application from the settled population - rather than be considered under policies relating to travellers,” the paper said.

The DCLG insisted it was open to further measures to support those travellers who fall under the proposed new definition to facilitate their nomadic habit of life. “For example, through the use of conditions which ensure that transit sites are available at certain times of the year for travellers to occupy on a temporary basis. This of course would be a matter for the local authority but may go towards making provision for those travellers who do travel.”

The Housing (Assessment of Accommodation Needs) (Meaning of Gypsies and Travellers) (England) Regulations 2006 would also be amended to bring the definition of ‘gypsies and travellers’ into line with the proposed definition of ‘travellers’ for planning purposes.

Consideration would meanwhile be given to amending primary legislation to ensure that those who have given up travelling permanently have their needs assessed.

The consultation paper additionally contains proposals to protect the Green Belt against “inappropriate” traveller site development. These would include “reducing the circumstances in which temporary permission may be granted, ensuring green belt policy applies to traveller sites in the same way it does for most bricks-and-mortar housing, and that councils should very strictly limit new traveller sites in open countryside”.

Justifying the measures, Housing Minister Brandon Lewis claimed that between 2000 and 2009 there had been a four-fold increase in the numbers of unauthorised caravans. He also argued that this had created tensions between travellers and the settled population.

Lewis said: “We will not sit back and allow people who bypass the law to then benefit from the protection it can offer.

“We have already strengthened the powers that councils have to enforce planning rules and take action against breaches which fuel community tensions. This will not only tackle the abuse of the system but prevent long drawn-out cases like Dale Farm.”

He added: “[These] proposed measures go even further, and would end the perverse incentive for councils not to act when travellers ignore planning rules and set up unauthorised sites.”