Gypsy and Traveller Planning

Debate between Paul Beresford and Andrew George

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Westminster Hall

[Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley) (Con)]

I shall try to be quick, and will concentrate mostly—directly or indirectly—on enforcement. The Minister can turn to his page on enforcement, so he will be ready.

One thing that I like about the consultation, which has been mentioned already, is the sentence:

“Many people think that current planning policy treats traveller sites more favourably than it does other housing and that it is easier for one group of people to gain planning permission particularly on Green Belt land.”

Hear, hear. In my area, Surrey, 87% of the land is green belt. The situation is difficult for Travellers and Traveller sites, and it is also difficult for the settled community. My constituency has a number of official Gypsy sites. There are few or no problems, and the Gypsies are part of the community. Everything is settled and clear. We have two planning authorities in my constituency, Mole Valley and Guildford. Because we are close to Epsom downs we have trouble, particularly with Gypsies who come in from across a little patch of water, with a distinct accent—not mine; not even similar. They come and squat.

The Travellers tend to use expert legal advice. There are a couple of agencies involving solicitors that are expert in such matters, and they are paid for by Travellers’ groups. They enable the Travellers to become the Artful Dodgers of the planning system. One of the techniques, in some of the better areas of my constituency, is to purchase a patch of land where there is no hope of any form of planning permission for residence. Either Travellers or people pretending to be Travellers make those applications, forcing the locals to panic, club together and purchase the land at an outrageous price. If enforcement were sure, and those local people knew that the inevitable refusal of the application would be followed by enforcement that really happened, those scams would fall apart.

The second technique that I want to mention is squatting, something which the Government are, I understand, looking at. Squatting in rural areas is done by Travellers. They do not squat in buildings, but they bring their buildings with them and squat on the land with caravans and so on. In my area, they also squat on the land with their animals—horses. The difficulty is that at the moment when the bailiffs arrive, after a court order has been obtained, at least one mare, if not every one in the paddock, is about to give birth. A human would be put in an ambulance and whisked off to a maternity ward, but if the bailiffs approach a mare that is about to give birth, the rules apparently require the animal to be left there. Whether a birth happens or not is highly speculative—I am quite sure that it does not. However, what happens is that some of the farmers in my constituency—I know of one in particular—cannot use the land, because it is occupied by a couple of dozen horses.

When, finally, enforcement happens, the mess that is generally left behind is unbelievable. Perhaps the way the site is left could be included in consideration of the matter, so the people pushed off by the enforcement order pay for the removal, clean-up and restoration of the site. That would be helpful and might encourage many of those who cover the site with gravel and other things not to do so.

The third technique is to buy the land, generally with cash, from whatever source. That generally happens at the weekend, when the people arrive with caravans, trucks, bulldozers, loads of gravel, piping and so on. By the end of Sunday, they are installed. The electricity and water are tapped in, whether legally or not, and then the nonsense starts—hopeless applications, refusals, appeals and more refusals. To be fair, the Planning Inspectorate in Bristol has been quite good in my area and has backed the local authority, mainly. However, when the enforcement notices are delivered, there is an appeal against the notice. Then, as the Minister is obviously well aware, another, subtly different, application is put in. On and on it continues.

As has been mentioned, the people concerned do not pay council tax or taxes. They use the local system—the schools, health authorities, and so on—and the arguments start. The neighbourhood barneys are horrendous—there are accusations of theft and burglary—but I must be fair; I am sure that in one case, although the people who committed the crime might have been associated with the people on the site, they were not people from the site. Nevertheless, there is, to put it mildly, community disharmony.

I want to outline two cases. The first is in Guildford on the A246. It is a greenfield pasture, which is fenced in. There have been three applications and three refusals, and at least two failed appeals. There are two derelict caravans on the site. As one hon. Member has mentioned, the council are wondering whether it should bother with its enforcement notice, because the cost will be astronomical and it can imagine that, once it gets part of the way there, another application will be made, and it will be back to square one. We need that side of enforcement to be pushed.

[Andrew George]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point about planning in general, although not particularly about Gypsy encampments; those who want to abuse the planning system often use the ruse of making retrospective applications, then appealing, and then reapplying, exactly as he has described. It is a weakness of the planning system, which is not necessarily the issue before the Chamber.

[Sir Paul Beresford]

I noticed the nature and the subject of the debate, and have not strayed, although the hon. Gentleman has.

Anyone trying to sell or improve their property finds a big sign on the A246, which is the main road, saying “Romany Stables”. Opportunities to sell property have fallen in number because of that apparent threat. The situation is becoming disgraceful.

The second case involves a Gypsy who does not live in Mole Valley. He lives many miles away and used to—he probably still does—drive a lovely Rolls-Royce. He bought greenfield pasture land in the green belt. He sold it to his wife, who sold it to her cousin, who sold it too, and on it goes. Finally, a small group moved in there in the way in which I have described: gravel, electricity and water were built in over the weekend. There were five caravans, one of which looks like two mobile homes linked together. There was the usual pattern of enforcement notices, appeals and planning applications. The last appeal was quite a clever one. The order was to allow temporary accommodation, while the local authority looked for alternative sites over a period of time.

My concern is my local authority. I am worried that, having looked—not very well and in a limited area—and weighed up the fact that a sympathy that has no grounds in planning is being generated, the local authority may use a sympathy consideration, not a planning consideration, and allow the application on a greenfield site to go ahead. If someone such as the local farmer had built a house on that site, it would have been bulldozed—even though his children go to the local school and use the local hospital and doctor’s service—but that has not happened in this case because, as insinuated by the first sentence I read out, such groups are perceived to have an opportunity and a right that the rest of us do not. I ask the Minister to have a look before my local authority stubs its toes and gives permission, to the fury of many of us.