talking about gypsies and travellers michael hargreaves, irish traveller movement in britain
TRANSCRIPT
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Talking about Gypsies and Travellers
Michael Hargreaves,
Irish Traveller Movement in Britain
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Will cover
• The challenge to Big Fat Gypsy Wedding
• ITMB Research Findings
• The local narrative – Chorley, South Cambs & Basildon
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Bigger, Fatter, Gypsier
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The Advertising Standards Agency Review
• 372 initial complaints to ASA dismissed out of hand
• ITMB and Howe & Co lodged an appeal to the independent ASA adjudicator
• He asked ASA to undertake a formal review
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Findings
• The campaign was irresponsible, endorsed prejudice against Gypsies and Travellers, was guilty of depicting a child in a sexualised way, and was likely to have caused mental & moral harm to children
• Central to the finding was the evidence of the impact on bullying, attacks on girls in schools
• The first time a regulatory body has recognised prejudice against Gypsies and Travellers
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That was the posters
• Ofcom has now announced an investigation of the programmes as a whole
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Planning for Gypsies & Travellers: The Impacts of Localism, June 11
• http://irishtraveller.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/ITMB_Planning_for_Gypsies_and_Travellers11.pdf
• Responses from 100 councils in 3 regions• With RS abolition the 3 regions the targets they
recognised to fall from 2,919 to 1,395 – 52%• 40% of respondents expressed concerns about
increased local opposition to development for Travellers under a community based planning system
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Planning for Gypsies & Travellers: The Impacts of Localism
• Communities believe they can expect to have proposals they oppose rejected
• Widespread delay & uncertainty among LPAs in progressing their development plans
• Reticence to go beyond defining criteria to identifying and allocating sites
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Gypsy & Traveller Site Funding under the Coalition, March 2012
• http://irishtraveller.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/HCA-Site-Funding-Report-v.62.pdf
• £60m Traveller Pitch Fund - January 2012 £47m of grants
• 110 transit, replacement, Showpeople. So 510, not 620.
• No relationship between need & allocations. Parts of the Midlands, SW, Yorks, NE did reasonably well.
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Gypsy & Traveller Site Funding under the Coalition
• Many areas unwilling to bid. Essex, Kent, Cambs, Surrey, Herts 25% of caravans, 4% of funds
• Unitaries 46% of new site funds• Housing Associations not interested• Too many extensions• Sites identified for less than half new
pitches, less than 20% have permission
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Chorley 1
• Council consistently claimed no Travellers in Chorley
• Reflects sites provided after 1968 Act
• But also lack of knowledge
• Officers afraid to engage
• No change with change of leadership
• Residents paid for own barrister
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Chorley 2
• 2 appeals, continued objection after CLG conceded 2nd inspectors report unsound, prosecution for non compliance, seeking an injunction
• Tenacity, fear of unsafe sites
• Stress, health impacts
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South Cambs 1
• No town, 101 parish councils• Significant Gypsy & Traveller numbers, lots
of temporary permissions• Smithy Fen, Willingham, Fen Road • 2 public sites – all 29 pitches English Gypsies• Local plan work put aside – lost the
opportunity to include in major developments
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South Cambs 2
• New needs assessment
• Trying to reopen a 10 pitch site against massive local opposition, so it can address local issues in Willingham & Smithy Fen
• OK to give 2nd & 3rd temporary permissions and move people around
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Reopening Mettle Hill
• Notorious travellers’site set to reopen. A travellers’ site which was shut down when it became a hotbed of crime and vandalism is set to reopen
• Taxpayers to pay £3m for travellers’ sites• Coachloads of villagers oppose travellers’
site• MP: ‘Keep Traveller site shut’
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Some Comments by Councillors
• Mervyn Loynes - I’d put a minefield around all of them
• Deborah Roberts – Travellers should be left to stew in raw sewage
• Would launch a suicide bomb on Smithy Fen, if she had cancer
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And the Housing Portfolio Holder
• F*** off Gypos – Councillor Mark Howell
• Could the County put up some of these?
• A private joke between friends in the Independent group
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Basildon
• Too many Travellers• Have acted illegally• Rejected opportunity to solve – offer of
HCA land • Assumed they would disappear• Don’t deal with them as people, Traveller
liaison officers are enforcement. Compare local police
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Ministers’ Messages?
• Pickles pledges ‘to stop the caravans in their tracks’ with new instant stop notices. ‘You know the story: in breach of planning law, travellers move in over a bank holiday weekend and it takes years for councils to remove them’
• £1.2m grant for the eviction• A widespread perception that the system is
unfair and that it is easier for one group to gain permission, particularly on sensitive Green Belt