Unauthorised Encampments

Damian Collins Excerpts

Wednesday 8th September 2010 Westminster Hall

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)]

Like my hon. Friends, I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) for securing this debate. He said in his opening remarks that he wanted to focus on three aspects of the issue. I will make a few remarks about the first aspect, trespass and occupation, based on incidents in my constituency, although I do not claim that we have had the same number of incidents as the constituencies of other Members who have spoken.

I wanted to highlight the fact that some small groups of Travelling communities are clever in exploiting tactically chosen sites. The ownership of the land might be disputed, it might take some time to find out who is responsible and a lot of time is wasted before an enforcement notice is made.

We have had particular problems with this in Folkestone, where a single group of Travellers have moved between different sites. They have been able to stay at sites for several months. Recently, a community spent three months on a piece of land backing on to a residential community in Birkdale drive in the Park Farm area of Folkestone before an enforcement notice was made. That was largely because of a dispute between Kent Highway Services and the Highways Agency as to which of them was responsible for the site. It turned out that the Highways Agency believed that it had transferred ownership to Kent Highway Services, but there was no record of any such transfer, and the community stayed on the site during the to-ing and fro-ing.

I have every sympathy for the district commander of the local police, who was keeping a careful eye on the site, but who was powerless to do anything until the enforcement order was made. Even then, when the dispute had been resolved, and Kent Highway Services agreed to go to court to try to get the enforcement notice—it was still not clear whether it owned the land—it took time to get court time and to get the notice granted. Residents felt that no one was really doing anything to resolve their plight. The Travellers cleverly exploited the ambiguity to enable them to stay, and they have moved from site to site doing the same thing.

My constituents’ question is whether we could look at the law on trespass, alongside some of the other points that have been raised, and which I know the Department is considering. If Travellers have gained access to a site, and it is clear that they do not own the land and have made no efforts to establish contact with the landowners or do not know who they are, there should be some obligation on them to prove that they have a right to be there. It should not just be for the public authorities to prove that the Travellers do not have the right to be there, particularly when the process might take quite a long time, and it is clear that we are dealing not with a temporary encampment, but with a permanent occupation of the land until an enforcement notice has been granted.

In the example that I gave, the Travellers made no attempt to create an illegal, permanent camp or to alter the land in any way; they were simply going to stay on the land for as long as they could, until they were moved on. However, they did that in the full knowledge that that could take quite some time, and there was nothing that the resident community could do while we were going through the relevant processes. I would be grateful if the Government looked at the issue and gave us some advice as to whether we can simplify or revise the law. Could some consideration be given to the databases and the land registry for the ownership of public land where land is passed between public bodies and there may be some confusion as to who is the responsible party?

[Several hon. Members]

rose—