Julian Knight
Main Page: Julian Knight (Independent - Solihull) Gypsies and Travellers and Local Communities
Julian Knight Excerpts
Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con)
That did not happen in my constituency, where we had the farce of people parking in the car park and receiving fines—these were legal motorists—which I then had to get overturned by the council. That again emphasises that there is one rule for one and another rule for another.
James Heappey
My hon. Friend makes a very good point. Indeed, that was exactly what happened when we had the very first occupation in Burnham-on-Sea. Traffic wardens were giving tickets to those who had parked legally but overrun, while the Travellers were allowed to be there without penalty. We are talking about the main tourist car park for what is—I can say this now that my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) has left the Chamber—Somerset’s premier seaside resort. The presence of an illegal encampment in that car park—especially one right next door to the coach park, which is an important part of our town’s business—creates entirely the wrong first impression, may well lose us business and certainly costs local businesses nearby, and that is without mentioning the clean-up costs that the local council incurs as well.
In the nearby village of Berrow, there was a Traveller encampment on the village green. Given the mess that the green was left in afterwards, Berrow chose as a village to spend quite a large proportion of its annual precept on building a bund all the way around the green. I question whether money that is hard earned by parish councils should be spent on preventing illegal activity rather than on more positive improvements for the community altogether.
I should also mention that there have routinely been encampments on private land up in Brean, a popular tourism destination, which means that businesses that contribute enormously to our local economy are left holding the baby and are responsible for bringing in the bailiffs and moving those Travellers on. Additionally, Somerset County Council has told me that in the last three years it has spent nearly £25,000 on moving Travellers on from the public highway and a further £6,000 on the clean-up costs afterwards. At every turn, there is an asymmetric cost—a cost to councils, Avon and Somerset police, local businesses and the community, but no cost whatsoever to the Travellers who have made the illegal encampment.
The argument is that illegal encampments are an issue only if there is inadequate provision of authorised sites, but there are 64 authorised pitches in Somerset. In Bath and North East Somerset and in North Somerset, the two adjoining local authorities, there are a further 50, so there are 114 pitches available in the county of Somerset. How many can the taxpayer be expected to provide? We live in a beautiful part of the world, with a good local economy, but surely our liability for Travellers cannot be unlimited or set simply by Traveller demand. We must be willing to say what is a fair provision for councils to offer. We must reduce costs to local authorities or find a way to pass them on to the Travellers who are illegally encamped.
We must ensure that the process is quicker, so that we end this cat-and-mouse game, whereby the Travellers understand exactly how long they can stay, stay for exactly that long and then move on before they incur any cost, while the council has incurred all the cost in the process. The Irish option, which a number of colleagues have discussed this evening, is well worth looking at. We must ensure that the rules are fair for both the travelling and the settled communities. There can no longer be one law for the Travellers and another for everyone else.
Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for bringing the debate gently back to Essex once more.
I rise to stand up for my community in Tendring and Clacton, which has the beautiful aesthetics of a rural district. However, so much open space makes it vulnerable to illegal encampments. We are a coastal resort and, like many others around the country, we have regular incursions, especially during the summer and over bank holiday weekends. In short, we pretty much know when and where to expect incursions, and we should be able to react swiftly and positively. It needs to be stated that we have a moral obligation to all our citizens to make sure local policy works for everyone. That, quite rightly, includes the provision of good quality legal Traveller sites. However, that cannot overshadow the damage inflicted on land, policing and local authority budgets, and on community relations, from excessive and illegal encampments. We have legal Traveller sites, but that is not where Travellers necessarily want to go.
In May this year, three caravans and a van arrived at Vista Road recreation ground in Clacton, in the corner of the field next to the boundary with Clacton County High School. At Easter, 16 caravans stayed on land at the front of the Columbine Centre, next to Walton-on-the-Naze Lifestyles, making it their home for almost a week. We had to clean up for both and it was very expensive. Travellers also pitched up on a school playing field, just as children left to begin their summer holidays, with seven caravans and vehicles arriving on land that backs on to Whitehall Academy and Clacton Coastal Academy.
This causes great disruption to the community and it must be managed in the right way. For my Clacton constituency in Essex, there are broadly two routes for redress against illegal encampments. First, the Essex countywide Traveller unit—ECTU—is informed. Its team makes a visit and then serves a direction to leave. That gives the group 24 hours to move off. If they do not do so, the whole process of court action begins. Alternatively, the police have the section 61 powers, which can be used straight away if criminal damage or public safety is an issue, or if more than six vehicles form the encampment. I commend the Home Office for working closely with the police to ensure the powers they have are fit for purpose. However, the decision on when and whether to use police powers is an independent operational decision for the police. Put simply, it is a judgment call for the police.
In our community, police action is preferred as it is swift and shows the full force of the law to those who seek to break it. I am mindful, however, of the issue of police capacity in enforcing such laws. I personally would be relaxed about paying a few more pounds a year on my precept if the 2% cap were removed, as it would allow us to increase police funding and give us greater capacity to use the current laws. While the police precept cap seems to be a separate issue, I must say that my constituents wish to see the law robustly enforced.
Julian Knight
The problem is, though, that there is no guarantee that the money would be spent on that. It could just fall into the general police budget.
Giles Watling
It could indeed, but we have to find the money from somewhere, and it is lacking in Tendring district. I had a long talk with my local commander just two weeks ago and I know roughly where we are going.
My local residents would not get away with illegal developments, and neither must anyone else—it is one law, and we must all be equal under it. Section 61 powers should be used wherever necessary, and the appropriate resources must be part of that—not a popular thing to say, I know. Essex has a very low precept, and thus a 2% increase would raise far less per head than a 2% increase for a force with a higher precept. I do not think my constituents would begrudge an extra £10 a year or so if it meant an increased policing capacity to act swiftly and decisively on issues such as these illegal sites, and of course on many other criminal activities.
We need a two-pronged conversation about the fitness of the law and the ability to deliver it. All people in Clacton want is fairness under the law. Seeing an illegal encampment tackled is a hallmark of this concept. While I am open to conversations about changing or tightening the law, as mentioned earlier, the starting point must be giving the current law the opportunity to function at its peak potential and thus scrapping the precept cap and increasing policing capacity to tackle the illegal encampment. Then we can perhaps move on to the Irish option.
Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con)
I do not know whether you have ever visited Solihull, Mr Speaker, but it is blessed with many parks and other green and open spaces. I, like the rest of my town, was really looking forward to spending the summer enjoying those open spaces, but unfortunately we have attracted an unprecedented spate of Traveller incursions, which has tested Solihull Council’s defences and my constituents’ patience to the limit.
Unauthorised camps deny residents access to shared community spaces, but that is the least of the trouble: they are also very often accompanied by a spate of antisocial and even criminal behaviour. Not only have local businesses reported vandalism, but in the most recent incursions an elderly lady and autistic child were attacked in Shirley Park.
I have even had reports of rubbish being taken from Birmingham, where there has been a prolonged bin strike, and dumped on public land in Solihull by groups of Travellers in exchange for cash payments. The distress caused can be measured by the huge volume of emails I have received over the summer and the almost 4,000 signatures on my petition calling for the council to invest in new, more effective protections for public spaces, as well as the targeted injunctions mentioned earlier by the right hon. Member for Warley (John Spellar). The rich irony is that I know for a fact that those injunctions in Sandwell have worked—the groups have moved down to Solihull. That pattern is repeated across the country, judging by what hon. Members have said today.
I have also spent months in close contact with council officers and the police communicating the concerns of residents and local landlords. Too often, I have found that a particular group were simply being chased from park to park, with a council needing to seek a new eviction notice in the courts every time the Travellers pitched up at a new location. Other bands would circumvent court orders by temporarily merging with others and parting again in new combinations to which the order no longer applied. The police potentially have some powers under section 61, but the bar for implementation can be very high indeed. I have argued strongly that that bar needs to be lowered and that the repetitive nature of these incursions should be taken into account.
A lot of money has also been spent on the proofing against Traveller incursions of public spaces and parks. Okay, that can work in some instances, but it can also ruin the aspect of these green spaces. Why should my constituents have to tolerate trenches being dug, trees being uprooted and bollards being put in place? Why should council officers not be at work because they are guarding other green spaces, while Travellers are being moved on from other locations?
Many suggestions have been made today, and I am sure that stories such as mine have been repeated throughout the debate. I appeal to Ministers. They said that the review will consider the law; I presume that that will mean new laws. I hope that they will take soundings from my hon. Friend the Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock (Stephen Metcalfe) and my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Mr Syms). Enough is enough: we cannot keep playing this game every summer with our constituents—the public land, the cost, the damage. The Government must toughen up the laws. Let us give them the sinews to act.