Unauthorised Encampments

Gordon Henderson Excerpts

Wednesday 8th September 2010 Westminster Hall

[Gordon Henderson (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Con)]

I agreed with my hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) when he said that we needed fairness, which is why I am speaking out on behalf of the settled community in Sittingbourne and Sheppey. People there are fed up to the back teeth with the way in which the previous Government allowed a two-tier planning system that explicitly gave preferential treatment to Gypsy and Traveller sites. Settled people in my constituency do not object to Gypsy and Traveller sites per se, but they believe that planning applications for those sites should be treated in exactly the same way as any applications from the settled community.

I could give any number of examples of unauthorised sites that have sprung up in my constituency. They have infuriated a number of communities, including that of Upchurch, which is surrounded by seven unauthorised sites, and Brambledown on the Isle of Sheppey. I should add here that, historically, the Isle of Sheppey has never had any Travellers or Gypsies, yet a site has now been installed.

One site in particular epitomises the concerns that settled people have with the two-tier planning system. In the small semi-rural community of Bobbing, just outside Sittingbourne, a crematorium has been established for just a handful of years. Opposite is a large field that was being used as a paddock. A couple owned the paddock. Unfortunately, the chap’s health deteriorated about three or four years ago and he became disabled. He wanted to be close to his horses so he put in a planning application to Swale borough council for a bungalow to be built on that land.

The planning officers and the development committee turned down the planning application on the grounds that the building of a bungalow in a countryside gap was inappropriate. The couple then decided to sell their land to somebody who lives in Medway, which is outside my constituency. As soon as the land was purchased, a planning application was submitted for a static caravan and a Travelling caravan to be installed on the site and for outbuildings to accommodate them.

The planning officers, who only 18 months before had turned down a planning application on the grounds that it was inappropriate to have development in an important countryside gap, recommended approval of the planning application on the grounds that, because the applicants were of Gypsy extraction, it was appropriate to have a development in the countryside gap.

That type of contradiction infuriates settled people. People go through the correct procedures to submit planning applications and then somebody else comes along and gets approval. The officers were following Government policy; they were not making it up on the hoof. They were following guidance put out by the previous Government. I very much hope that, as a priority, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government will scrap that particular guidance note, which persuades local authorities and makes them give preferential treatment to one community over another.

I know that there is some talk about local authorities not being able to move people on because they are not providing sufficient sites. In my view, however, this issue is not about providing additional sites; too often, it is about somebody making a fast buck. That is epitomised by the case that I have just mentioned.