Lord
Avebury, Patron of the Traveller Movement, speaking at the Travellers Movement
Annual Conference at 10.30 on November 20, 2014 at Resource for London, 356
Holloway Road, London N7 6PA
Andrew George, Chair of the All-Party
Group on Gypsies and Travellers, said when the Government’s proposals on
planning and Travellers were published in September that the Government
couldn’t ‘redefine Travellers out of existence’. That’s exactly what they’re
doing.
They want Travellers to prove that they
are nomadic even though legal stopping places don’t exist.
Gypsies are to be redefined, losing
their identity unless they currently travel. This means that people on
tolerated or authorised sites will disappear from view.
Travellers have tried to establish permanent
bases for themselves by purchasing land and applying for planning permission.
Very few succeed, because they are vehemently opposed by local councillors and
residents.
But now, appeals against refusal of
permission in the Green Belt are being ‘recovered’, which means they are taken
out of the hands of inspectors and
decided personally by the hostile Eric Pickles, who has been sitting on them
for up to two years
Local authorities haven’t properly
assessed the need for sites, let alone designated the land for them. And now, land will only have to be found for
people who can prove they’re currently travelling.
The Government also propose that where
Travellers buy land and then apply for planning permission, that will count
against them, knowing that in recent years doing it that way round and
appealing is the only way of settling down.
What
they’re aiming to do by making nomadism
impossible and then saying that Travellers have to be currently nomadic is to
force them into bricks and mortar housing, as the communist regimes of Russia
and eastern Europe did after the war.
The
long-term objective is to eliminate caravan sites for Travellers altogether, a
racist policy that doesn’t apply to mobile home parks for Gorgios.
The
policy is also racist because Mr Pickles doesn’t treat appeals against refusal
of planning permissions for Gorgio housing in the Green Belt in the same way as
appeals against refusal of permission for Gypsy caravans.
In the two years to July 2013 89 Gypsy
appeals were lodged for caravans in the Green Belt and 76 were recovered by Mr
Pickles. Over the same period 6 ordinary house appeals were recovered out of
1,162.
Chris Johnson of the Community Law
Partnership says that planning permissions are often allowed
for housing in the Green Belt or the Green Belt boundary is re-drawn to allow
development to occur; and he quotes as one example the recent approval of 100
new houses at Bucknalls Lane, Watford.
Contrary to the assertion by Tories that
the planning system is slanted in favour of Travellers, the exact opposite is
the case, and even larger breaches are in the offing. The Government has
approved plans for a 15,000 home new town at Ebbsfleet as the first of a new
generation of ‘garden cities’ to solve the housing crisis, particularly in
London and the Southeast.
Ebbsfleet is brownfield land but
inevitably these new towns, or the alternative proposed by the award-winning
urban designer David Rudlin which is to expand some 40 existing towns, would
mean encroaching on open land and the Green Belt on a grand scale. Will Ebbsfleet
Development Corporation find space for Traveller sites when it is established
early next year, considering that Travellers have inhabited the area since time
immemorial.
More generally if there is to be a new
town strategy for the hundreds of thousands of dwellings required to solve the
housing emergency, its unthinkable that it shouldn’t incorporate provisions for
the tiny fraction of that number, of pitches needed to eliminate the shortfall
in accommodation for Traveller sites.
Putting the obligation on the
development corporations could have the advantage of being immune from the
interference by Mr Pickles and the organised opposition that affects every
planning application under the present regime.
The money could be provided via the
Homes and Communities Agency, whose current programme for the three years
2012-15 will cover £62 million for around 600 new pitches. But that deals with
only half the growth of the Traveller population.
We need to know what the Government’s
intentions are for the years 2015-18. If the HCA funding isn’t renewed, or if
it is cut, that will be confirmation of the Government’s backdoor intention to
deny Gypsies and Travellers their historic cultural identity.
The recovery of all appeals for
Traveller developments in the Green Belt is to be tested in the courts in two
weeks’ time, when they hear two judicial review applications against the
Secretary of State. Unusually, the Equality and Human Rights Commission have
requested and been given permission by the court to intervene in these cases.
Whatever the court decides, the
proposals represent a degree of central control which is incompatible with the
Government’s professed belief in localism, the transfer of power wherever
possible from Whitehall to local authorities.
Most if not all Travellers want a
settled base so that they can access public services, particularly health and education.
They are the most disadvantaged of any of our ethnic minorities.
Refusing to acknowledge that for the
Travellers with a strong cultural tradition of living in small extended family
groups on caravan sites, one of the reasons for their disadvantage is their
precarious existence being hounded from pillar to post, the Government are
perpetuating the problem.
When the coalition came into office they
set up a ministerial working group on tackling inequalities experienced by
Gypsies and Travellers. The Ministers produced what they called a ‘progress
report’ in April 2012, implying that it wasn’t the end of the story; but in the
two and a half years since that date there have been no further meetings, and
none are planned.
There has been no attempt to review the
trivial commitments they made on accommodation, neither of which could have had
the slightest effect on relieving the shortage. The exercise was entirely
cosmetic, designed purely to fend off criticism by the European Union of the
UK’s refusal to adopt a National Roma
Integration Strategy as approved unanimously by member states for reducing the
disadvantage experienced by Roma, Gypsies and Travellers. This seems to be
another EU policy which Mr Cameron thinks he can ignore
The Ministers acknowledged in 2012 that
“there are still around 3,000 caravans
on unauthorised sites, either on sites developed without planning permission,
or on encampments on land not owned by Travellers. Gypsies and Travellers
living on unauthorised sites can face additional difficulties accessing health
and education services and the precarious nature of their homes can further
exacerbate inequalities and stifle life chances”
But now, the people on these
unauthorised sites are not to be included in the definition of Travellers, so
local authorities will be able to ignore them in their assessments of need for
sites. There are no commitments to increase the supply of sites, and the
connection between the dire shortage of culturally appropriate accommodation
and the inequalities identified by ministers was not reflected anywhere in the
document or in later statements.
The Ministerial Group should be
reconvened and asked to assess the likely effects of the new definition on the
3,000 families, and whether they consider that local authorities should offer
them bricks and mortar houses on a take it or leave it basis.
The Group should also be asked to
consider the bizarre situation identified by the Equalities Statement that
accompanies the Consultation, that a Traveller who settles down permanently for
whatever reason including old age, ill health, disability or children’s
educational needs ceases to be a Traveller. She and her family are still members
of a recognised minority ethnic group for the purposes of the Equality Act.
This will be a factor in the court cases
the week after next. Failure to exercise
the DCLG’s power “in a way that is designed to reduce the inequalities of
outcome which result from socio-economic disadvantage”, seems on the face of it
to be a clear breach of the public sector duty prescribed by the Equality Act,
as I believe the EHRC will argue.
The responses to the consultation on Mr
Pickles’ scheme for Gypsies and Travellers which ends in three days time will need
to be considered carefully, and when the final decisions emerge they will need
to be debated in Parliament. It will be too late for the Government to
introduce the primary legislation that would be required if as proposed, they
decide to alter the definition of Gypsies. This means that at least there will
be a reprieve, and we will have an
opportunity of seeing whether the parties, and individual candidates, will go
along with Mr Pickles’ illiberal ideas.
Friday November 20 Report to Orthopaedic Surgery from Cardiovascular Services:
He developed angina towards the end of 2013 precipitating an angiogram which was performed in April 2014, This showed patent grafts [including a patent LIMA graft to the LAD, patent RIMA to the marginal system, patent vein grafts to the diagonal and right coronary arteries].
Overall, this was a reassuring angiogram and means that no myocardial revascularisation was indicated.
From the point of view of elective orthopaedic surgery, [there is] significant co-morbidity and his operatve risk will be influenced by that. From the coronary point of view however he is very stable and already takes low dose beta-blockers. His condition is therefore optimal and nothing further can be done to reduce what will be a moderate peri-operative risk.
The question is whether to press for a right knee replacement, or should I put up with it for the 20 months I probably have left. The vascular surgeons will probably recommend against it.
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