Gypsy and Traveller Sites

Julian Sturdy Excerpts

Wednesday 15th May 2024 Westminster Hall

[Mr Hollobone]

The hon. Gentleman will not be surprised that I totally disagree.

I thank the House of Commons Library for the excellent briefing it published today, ahead of this debate. To put this into context, in July 2023, local authorities counted over 25,000 caravans on Gypsy and Traveller sites in England. That is a 21% increase in the last 10 years. Of those caravans, 26% were on public sites, 60% were on authorised private sites, and 14% were on unauthorised sites. Of the unauthorised sites, most—83%—were on land owned by Gypsies and Travellers, and 17% were unauthorised encampments on land belonging to private landowners or public authorities. The focus of this debate, with particular reference to Kettering and north Northamptonshire, is the 14% of unauthorised sites as well as the abuse of the conditions laid down in the grant of planning permission for authorised, private sites.

Locally in Kettering, North Northamptonshire Council is committed to meeting the needs of the Gypsy and Traveller community and addressing the challenges that it faces. A Gypsy and Traveller local plan is in preparation and quarterly meetings occur with interested local parish councils. I praise Councillor David Howes, who is the North Northamptonshire Council portfolio holder for Gypsies and Travellers, and George Candler, who is the deputy chief executive on North Northamptonshire Council, for facilitating those extremely useful meetings, which were positive and focused on providing suitable Gypsy and Traveller provision as well as addressing unauthorised encampments and the unlawful development of sites.

The suggestions I will outline in the next five to 10 minutes have emerged from the meeting that the Minister kindly attended in Kettering on 8 February, which was attended by council officers and representatives from local parish councils. Those suggestions are about how the current law encumbers local planning authorities in effectively enforcing the system.

[Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. He has touched on a key point. Does he agree that one of the problems is that planning guidance differs so much from local authority to local authority and in how it is applied? For example, City of York Council, which covers my constituency’s planning guidance, has been all over the place recently on the issue. It has looked at expanding existing sites, and when that has not worked it has moved to look at forcing local developers to add one to two pitches for every new development that comes forward. That is opposed by the local Traveller community and local communities, so the policy is just not working. We must find a better way of taking it forward.

[Mr Hollobone]

I am grateful for that useful intervention, because it is clear that the planning system around Gypsy and Traveller provision has so many holes in it and simply is not working. It is certainly not working for my hon. Friend’s constituents, and it is not working for mine, either.

A commonly seen pattern of behaviour is for Travellers to buy a plot of land, move in over a bank holiday weekend, strip off the topsoil and have a queue of tipper lorries arrive at the site to drop off hardcore. By the end of the weekend, hardstanding is down and caravans occupy the site, with no immediate action to stop them. Legal wrangles then follow through the planning process for perhaps the next three to four years or even longer, with enforcement, planning applications, appeals and so on. Most of the unauthorised developments in my local area deal with Gypsies and Travellers who have purchased the land, so they are not trespassers, and it can be difficult for the local authority to evidence at what point development actually occurred that is sufficient to serve a stop notice. That is particularly problematic in the early stages, when no residential occupation of the land has actually started.

The Minister will be aware that local councils cannot serve a stop notice on the basis of something that may occur but need to be able to confirm a permanent breach of the planning regulations—in other words, when residential occupation has occurred. Of course, once residential occupation has occurred, it is then more difficult to address. As the council is then involved in removing occupants from their home, they claim that they have nowhere else to go. It is not suitable to camp them at the roadside with young children, and it becomes difficult for the local council to dispute. A local authority, quite rightly under the current law—although I think that needs to be amended—must take note of human rights issues, protected characteristics and so on, especially if Travellers are recognised as an ethnic group in law.

In addition, the submission by Travellers of information, planning applications and other procedures are often made only shortly before critical deadlines, thereby further extending the period it takes to progress through the stages of the planning process and creating an extended period for issues to escalate. As a result, progress to a position where an application or enforcement notice can be considered, or an appeal registered, can often take 18 to 24 months or more. It is also well publicised that there is a significant backlog of cases at the Planning Inspectorate. The procedure for taking action against unlawful development is made harder and extended by the current requirements of the law, which bring about sometimes really considerable delays, risks and costs for local authorities.

Changes recently came into effect under the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023, but I am afraid they will not have a dramatic impact on planning enforcement against unauthorised Traveller sites. The Act does not, for example, address the difficulties in establishing the ownership of a site following a land transfer, the identities of the responsible persons on site, or whether the threshold has been met for a planning breach in law. My requests to the Minister include that there be a more simplified approach to discourage and manage the unauthorised development of land for the creation of Gypsy and Traveller pitches.

The process of issuing stop notices and taking enforcement action should be accelerated, as well as the process for requiring information to validate and consider planning applications. There needs to be provision for serving temporary stop notices immediately, before residential occupation has started.

The identification of landowners could be made easier where individuals operate outside the normal exchange of deeds and land registration. For example, why not have a legal requirement to publicly post information about the purchaser of the land at the site until the Land Registry is updated? That would facilitate faster identification of the landowner, and there would be sanctions for failing to display details of ownership.

For those who fail to take seriously compliance with temporary stop notices—this applies to almost all the Gypsy and Traveller sites in my local area—why not make it a criminal offence to fail to comply with a temporary stop notice? The potential for arrest and detention would make the punishment far more of a deterrent and would encourage greater compliance.

Why not make it a criminal offence to create residential accommodation or change the use of property to residential without planning permission? That would encourage the correct use of the planning system in seeking approval before development takes place.

I am afraid that fines are no real deterrent to get Travellers to desist from pursuing unauthorised developments. There needs to be a better process to allow local councils to remove development and consider the seizure of assets where a conviction has been secured and an order of the court obtained.

Why not change the planning regulations to amend permitted development regulations, which currently make the removal of topsoil acceptable? That creates significant local concern and has the potential to destroy the ecological qualities of land, and it undermines the principle of biodiversity net gain, as the biodiversity is removed ahead of an application going in.

Then we have the lack of alignment between the planning system and the caravan licensing regime. A caravan site licence can be issued only if there is planning permission in place. A person does not need to be the landowner to obtain planning permission, but to obtain a caravan licence they need to demonstrate that they own the land. That makes it difficult for licences to be issued to the correct responsible person. We need changes to the law whereby planning permission cannot be granted for a caravan site unless submitted by the owner of the land, or the caravan licence can be issued only to owners who have the required planning consent.

In addition, specific protection should be afforded to landowners, such as farmers, who do not wish for their land to be occupied, and do not wish to sell it but do so due to fear of reprisals. Such landowners may also find themselves subject to licensing enforcement for a site they do not actually manage.

Can we have changes to the fit and proper person test under the Mobile Homes Act 2013 so that site owners, directors and managers must meet the test? Can we have more detailed guidance about how local authorities can enforce those measures?

I thank the Minister for his attention and his officials for liaising with officials at North Northants Council about how such constructive changes to the law could be made. I welcome the Minister’s response.

City Centre Security Measures and Access for Disabled People

Julian Sturdy Excerpts

Tuesday 25th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Rachael Maskell]

I am grateful for the hon. Member’s intervention. We should not have to be having this debate here tonight, but we are, and we are determined to see the ban reversed.

Nice and Berlin witnessed hostile vehicle terrorism in 2016 and Barcelona, Westminster and others in 2017—we will never forget—so, following discussions, the police, the counter-terrorism unit and what is now the National Protective Security Authority believed that York needed protections. The minster was the first out of the blocks, as blocks were literally put around that magnificent cathedral to prevent vehicle incursion. Discussions also suggested that some thoroughfares might present a risk and needed further mitigation. Years passed and nothing happened, so clearly urgency was not apparent. In June 2020, barriers suddenly appeared without any consultation. That was due not to terrorist threats, but to covid and the need for social distancing. No one talked to disabled people. They were locked out by section 18 of the Traffic Order Procedure (Coronavirus) (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2020, which provided for a temporary ban for blue badge holders. We were then told by Green party councillors that it was because that was better for the environment, as if disabled people caused climate change and did not also want to save the planet. Then the barriers were for street cafés, to aid covid recovery, as opposed to ensuring that disabled people could spend their “purple pound” in York.

In November 2021, the Liberal Democrat-led City of York Council applied under the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 for a traffic regulation order, under which a counter-terrorism jurisdiction must

“avoid danger to persons or other traffic using the road.”

Any jurisdiction with any sense would recognise that protecting the environment, the economy, safety and blue badge holder access are not mutually exclusive things, but are complementary. If security was genuinely such an issue, what about all the other inconsistencies, such as the patchwork CCTV, with some cameras switched off, or the commercial vehicle access available when barriers are in place? Why can bollards simply be lifted out of their portals at any time, and why do bin vans sit with engines running? Why do the barriers lift at 5 pm when the streets are crowded, while at 10.30 am, when it is quiet, those barriers are down? I am not questioning the threat; I am questioning the logic.

Before a traffic regulation order is made, a council must comply with statutory requirements set out in the Local Authorities’ Traffic Orders (Procedure) (England and Wales) Regulations 1996. Those include a requirement for formal consultation and advertisement, which the council undertook in a short summer consultation period in 2021. More than 200 objections were registered. The local government and social care ombudsman responded, saying that York’s council had failed to respond to the consultation. Instead, the council argued that because 60% of disabled people had responded in support of the plans, that was sufficient to implement them. Not all respondents lived in York, and the nature of their impairment was not clear. Rather than exploring what mitigation the 40% required, the authority homogenised disabled people. Human rights law makes it clear that majority preferences cannot simply override those of minority groups. In December 2021, The Department for Transport’s best practice guide, “Inclusive Mobility”, was published, but those criteria were not met either. We must take a holistic approach to protecting people, not just through hostile vehicle mitigation, but from damaging infringement on human rights.

[Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this important debate. As a neighbouring MP, I support every point she has put forward. She is right to raise the point about the social isolation this is causing for people with disabilities who need access to our great city and its centre. Does she agree that there is also huge discrimination against rural communities? People from those communities with blue badges who need access to the city centre cannot access it at the moment because they do not have the required public transport. A lot of small rural communities are being left behind because of this policy.

[Rachael Maskell]

The hon. Gentleman is right to say that disabled people are more likely to experience loneliness—13% more likely—and because York is both urban and rural, the people living in communities in his constituency will also experience detriment. As we look across York, we know that security risks need to be addressed, but so do people’s human rights.

We live in a troubled world. Risks present themselves every day around the globe and here at home, and we must do all we can to keep our communities safe. There is no point in saying “if only” at the inquest when we had the chance to rechart the course of history. I understand risk and I want my city to be safe for all who enter. Mitigation must be proportionate and effective. But let us be clear: disabled people are not terrorists, yet they are the ones being excluded.

Imagine a sign saying “No disabled people”. Yet that is what York has sunk to: denying dignity to the 60-plus people who every day depend on their blue badge to access the city. My plea to the Minister is that blue badge holders need his help. In York, the council is clearly out of its depth. Some places have got this right and others horribly wrong. This is a very specialist area of policy, and central Government need to provide the specialism that localities do not have.

Barricades around our ancient city are nothing new. The centre already has the world-renowned wall, which makes for an enjoyable walk for those who can access it. There are 8 million visitors a year and just over 200,000 people living in York, and 34,592 residents identified as a disabled person in the 2021 census and around 7,000 have been issued with a blue badge, granting access and parking to reach shops, services, open spaces and entertainment across our city centre and beyond.

We have a heavy responsibility to ensure safety, but also to ensure that disabled people are not denied their rights. The latter has been poorly understood. A Labour Government would ensure that every town and city is safe and secure, and reverse the ban in York. I have been talking to my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Samantha Dixon), who says that it does not have to be this way. Access for blue badge holders has been facilitated there, overcoming the very issues that York has railed to grasp. Chester, the first British city to win the coveted European access city award for balancing safety and access, provides for access at barriers, which close only when risk is identified. Essential businesses and blue badge residents are on the list for access, and even visitors can apply in advance. Its infrastructure provides safety and access, and Chester understands the importance of involving and working with disabled people in planning.

Permitted Development and Shale Gas Exploration

Julian Sturdy Excerpts

Thursday 28th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mark Menzies]

I absolutely agree. The Minister has a difficult decision to make, because the planning system for shale gas simply cannot continue as it is. After various appeals, the planning process for Preston New Road and Roseacre has been going on for years. It is not good for local communities to have this hanging over them, nor does it favour local democracy, because the powerful can hire lawyers and basically game the system to suit them. The planning system in its current format must change and needs review, but permitted development is not the route to go down.

On the issue of local democracy, a lot of nonsense is talked when it comes to Lancashire County Council. It is said that Lancashire turned the Preston New Road site down and then Ministers forced it on them, but the reality is that planning officers at Lancashire County Council recommended that the site should go ahead on planning law grounds. Those people who were complaining about the Secretary of State giving Preston New Road permission to proceed cannot then celebrate when the same process refuses Roseacre Wood. The planning system sometimes gives us what we want, and it sometimes gives us the opposite of what we want. I am afraid that we cannot trim our argument to suit our case.

[Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a really important point. Does he agree that if the permitted development changes went through, they could have a detrimental impact and undermine public trust in our planning system?

[Mark Menzies]

Absolutely. Time is against me, so I will not give way again.

It is important that the Secretary of State bears in mind the concerns raised by local communities and Members such as me, and that we work together in a constructive way to ensure that permitted development is taken off the table, because it is not a sensible route to go down. The planning system must be reformed to ensure that there are consistent and transparent opportunities for input from local communities, that the process does not drag on for years and create a shadow over parts of our countryside, and that we give planning guidelines on what a suitable site looks like and what sites people should not frankly waste their breath considering.

I want us to move towards a situation where renewables provide the overwhelming majority of electricity output, alongside a contribution from nuclear. Until we get some movement on battery technology and other forms of the next stage of renewables, gas will play a part. On the cold day in February when the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine, gas does not play a part. Shale gas can only play a part if we can say hand on heart that it is done safely, that it has robust regulation and that it is taking communities with it, not being done to them.

I call on the Government to continue the work that has been done. Let us celebrate the huge amount of positive change that has taken place as a result of listening to concerns from Members such as me and ensure that permitted development is not a tool that the shale gas industry can deploy as part of the planning process.

East Coast Main Line Investment

Julian Sturdy Excerpts

Wednesday 17th October 2018 Westminster Hall

[Catherine McKinnell]

My hon. Friend makes a vital point very well. I absolutely support that call—indeed, I support the call for such improvements to be made right up and down the line. That is something we should all focus on.

I am sure that many hon. Members will want to raise such concerns directly with LNER at the drop-in briefing that I will host next month, and that they will wish to update colleagues on their plans. That briefing is also an opportunity to put to LNER the case for some of the improvements that we would like to work together to secure.

It would be wrong to lay all of the problems that I have outlined today at the door of LNER, or indeed that of Virgin, given that the latest performance figures published by Network Rail show that some 58% of the delays and cancellations on the route over the last year were caused by Network Rail itself. Those figures are a clear reflection of the east coast main line’s ageing and unreliable infrastructure. I suggest again to the Minister, as I have done at the APPG meeting that he attended and in writing, that that infrastructure is in urgent need of improvement or replacement, including of track, signalling and overhead power lines on the electrified sections. Also, far greater resilience is required in bad weather, which the rail networks of many other countries that have far more challenging climatic conditions than we do appear able to cope with.

[Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Lady for giving way. She is making a powerful argument, and I agree about the need to improve the infrastructure. There is a lot of talk about overhead cables and track, but does she agree that, given the new rolling stock, we should also look to invest in new digital technology, such as in-cab signalling? The Government have talked about bringing that forward, but there is no timetable for doing so. Does she agree that we should be looking at a timetable for that digital technology?

[Catherine McKinnell]

Absolutely. The hon. Gentleman has put that clearly on the record, and it would be good if the Minister referred to it in his response to the debate. Indeed, it is also an issue that the APPG can take up as part of the wider call to ensure that on the east coast main line we have the railway for the future and the investment that is required to deliver it.

Of course, the infrastructure-related poor performance on the east coast main line is not really surprising, given that the last significant large-scale improvement on the route was electrification to Edinburgh, which was completed back in 1991. To some of us, that feels like yesterday, but it is almost three decades ago.

In contrast, the west coast main line benefited from a major upgrade in the period between 1998 and 2009, at a cost of £9 billion in today’s prices, accelerating journey times and offering greater passenger and freight capacity. That has resulted in at least 20% more passengers on the west coast main line, which is evidence that investment in existing rail infrastructure works.

So it is clear that the east coast main line, with its creaking infrastructure, is not currently fit for purpose and the demands that are already being made on it, but what about the demands of the future? Even without High Speed 2, forecasts predict that passenger demand on long-distance services will increase dramatically in the coming decades. For example, it has been estimated that between 2012 and 2043 there will be growth in demand of up to 175% for London to Edinburgh journeys, up to 145% for London to Leeds journeys and up to 62% for Leeds to Newcastle journeys. Therefore, increased capacity and, crucially, increased reliability will be vital for the east coast main line in the coming years, requiring short to medium-term investment regardless of any plans for HS2.

However, it is crucial to highlight that HS2 does not remove the need for longer-term investment in the east coast main line, as the benefits of HS2 phase 2b will be fully realised only if there is an associated investment in the east coast main line. Also, as I am sure the Minister is well aware, the northern part of the line needs improvement so that HS2 trains can operate on it at high speeds. The east coast main line needs to be fast, reliable and resilient, day in and day out, as HS2, which aims to achieve Japanese-style timekeeping at a level that the east coast main line does not even aspire to yet, comes into use. Passengers must experience the same service when HS2 runs on the east coast main line as they do on the rest of the HS2 route. Of course, the far northern, central and southern parts of the east coast main line, which will not be served by HS2, also need such longer-term investment, so that they do not become more remote in terms of connectivity and prosperity.

However, the Consortium of East Coast Main Line Authorities has made it very clear to me that the Department for Transport’s current proposals are insufficient to ensure that the east coast main line is HS2-ready by 2033, which is the point when the link between HS2 and the east coast main line is intended to be in place.

I know that on 23 July the Prime Minister made a somewhat unexpected announcement to

“confirm an investment of up to £780 million for major upgrades to the East Coast Main Line from 2019, to be completed in the early 2020s”,

which would give passengers

“more seats and faster, more frequent journeys”.

Yorkshire Devolution

Julian Sturdy Excerpts

Tuesday 9th January 2018 Westminster Hall

[Dan Jarvis]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and I was grateful for the opportunity to discuss this with him earlier. I appreciate that there is much in what I have said that he feels he can agree with. He raises an important point, but it must be set against the fact that an overwhelmingly decisive mandate has just been delivered to the leaders of Doncaster and Barnsley councils not to pursue the Sheffield city region deal. I accept that these are perhaps imperfect solutions, and I accept that we are not in the place where any of us would have liked to be when we embarked on this journey some time ago, but the most recent democratic mandate is the one delivered emphatically by the people of Barnsley and Doncaster just a couple of weeks ago.

[Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)]

I am listening carefully to what the hon. Gentleman is saying; he is making an articulate argument. I agree that we need a solution for Yorkshire, and that that solution must be ambitious, as he said. However, I want to pick up on one point that he made. He mentioned a wider Yorkshire deal by 2020. I know that he is making the case for Barnsley and Doncaster, but as an MP for York and North Yorkshire, the idea that we might not have devolution until 2020 worries me. Will he consider bringing forward devolution in other areas across the county as well, such as in the greater Yorkshire deal, and then considering amalgamating it all, perhaps by 2020, into a wider Yorkshire deal, so that all areas of our great county start to get the benefits of devolution?

[Dan Jarvis]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. It is interesting, in the run-up to this debate, that some people have said to me that we should press for a wider Yorkshire settlement earlier than 2020, and other people have said that it is unrealistic to expect that a deal could be done within that time frame. His basic point is absolutely right: we need to work constructively with the Minister and the Department to strain every sinew to ensure that our part of the world has, at the very least, an equal playing field on which to compete with other parts of the world.

I will make one further point, which is the essence of the case that I am trying to make. I do not say for one moment that Yorkshire and the Humber should be a special case, but I do believe—I make no apologies for stating it in these terms—that it is a special place. There is something special about what John Sentamu described this morning as God’s own county. There is a huge strength in our diversity. If we could create an arrangement that brought together 5.3 million people into an economy bigger than 11 EU nations, we would truly be a force to be reckoned with, not just in this country but around the world. In the far east—China, Japan or wherever—people know about Yorkshire. It means something to them, and it means something to us. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to put in place an arrangement that could be really meaningful for the people we represent, and I very much hope that we will not miss out.

In conclusion, I reflect back on the decisive results delivered across the north of South Yorkshire just before Christmas. We need to put into practice the decision taken by those people. We need to find a solution and to seize this once-in-a-generation opportunity that we have been given to drive forward the northern powerhouse and give the Yorkshire region the chance to transform its economic and political future. I say to the Minister in all good faith that not many Ministers are given the opportunity to do what he has the opportunity to do now. I hope that he will take it up.