Memorandum by Epping Forest District Council
(TF 64)
Thank you for your letter of 22 February 2000.
I am glad for the opportunity to set out in writing our experience
with regard to accommodation for Travelling Showpeople.
Firstly, I believe the phrase "winter quarters"
is no longer applicable. Such accommodation these days includes
homes for retired showpeople all the year round and working families
are encouraged to provide steady schooling for young children
such that they are not away from home all year. Moreover, modern
roads and transport, together with a reduction in venues for travelling
fairs, lead to people and equipment being able to travel more
freely between their base and fairs so that they are on the home
site from time to time through the summer months.
Consequently, the base is occupied to a large
extent all through the year and cannot any longer be legitimately
termed "winter quarters".
This Council has been aware of its responsibilities
to travelling showpeople for many years, and in accordance with
Circular 22/91 included a policy in its 1998 adopted Local Plan—policy
H12, see attached extract. You will note in paragraph 9.80 that
the Council has three sites within its area that serve the needs
of travelling showpeople, each in a different way, and these three
sites were to meet the needs of the local population of such people.
Thus the policy is negatively worded.
However, the Council's experience in regard
to the site at Moreton is pertinent, and the subject of other
representation that you have received.
The Moreton site is long established and had
grown in extent and the number of residents over the years. In
the early 1990s, it spread onto an adjacent meadow without planning
permission and the Council served an Enforcement Notice against
this incursion and was successful at appeal in arguing that this
expansion was not appropriate. The Notice was upheld, but the
Council had recognised that the original site had become too small
for the community of travelling showpeople. Their numbers had
increased through marriage and second and third generations were
now occupying the site. Due to the recognised difficulties in
terms of safe working and fire hazards the Council did not seek
to prosecute non-compliance with its Enforcement Notice, and worked
with the community at looking at alternative sites or other solutions
to its overcrowding problem. This was in accordance with para
15 of Circular 22/91. However, the travelling showpeople were
somewhat intransigent in not being willing to consider splitting
its community into two or more smaller groups nor relocating its
storage of equipment separately from the mobile homes. I believe
its difficulties could have been addressed earlier if they were
more flexible in these areas.
After extensive consultation, no suitable site
could be identified by the Council that met the expressed needs
of the showpeople. However, they came forward with a site close
to their existing site on the other side of Moreton Village.
A planning application was received, registered
and publicised in the normal way. A great deal of local opposition
was expressed against the proposal. By the time the application
was reported to Committee the Council had received objections
from the Parish Council, from a locally formed action group and
from 128 residents of the village and the locality, plus a 300
signature petition, all objecting to the proposal.
I must emphasis that the objections were largely
concerned with relevant planning issues. There was very little
comment about the type of people making the application. After
all the village residents had lived with the travelling showpeople
community for many years without any ill feeling. However, there
was a great feeling of injustice developing if permission was
to be granted. This was the Green Belt and the "static"
village population could not hope to provide new accommodation
for its second and third generations, but a special case was being
argued that the travelling showpeople could provide new accommodation
in the Green Belt for further generations ad infinitum.
An unbiased professional assessment taking into
account the special circumstances promoted by Circular 22/91 was
prepared by officers for the Council's Committee, but elected
Members also had regard to the weight of local opposition and
planning permission was refused on proper planning grounds.
I see no fault with this outcome. It seems perfectly
reasonably for elected members to have regard to local opinion
when considering cases that rely upon very special circumstances
to warrant setting aside the normal Green Belt policies of restraint.
Unfortunately, no such tempering of professional
assessment is allowed at appeal stage. There is great disquiet
that planning permission was granted for this larger relocated
site on appeal in the face of such heavy local opposition. The
injustice I referred to above is now apparent. That travelling
showpeople are allowed to live in mobile homes in the Green Belt
is accepted, but why should they be accorded a special status
that enables their sons and grandsons to continue to live at the
same site when they grow older and have families of their own
when other residents of the village cannot provide the same for
their offspring because of Green Belt policies?
The strength of local opposition must be given
some weight. The Human Rights Act 1998 secures rights which are
to be applied to the community as a whole as it does for minority
groups, and the views of a local population cannot be dismissed
as irrelevant.
I believe some consideration needs to be given
to:
(a) the rights of second and subsequent generation
showpeople to be treated as special cases;
(b) how such special treatment endorsed by
Circular 22/91 can be justified in the face of considerable local
opposition; and
(c) travelling showpeople being willing to
divide their storage of equipment from maintenance work and from
residential accommodation and not simply dismissing the suggestion
as not being compatible with their traditional way of life.
B Land MRTPI
Assistant Head of Planning Services
(Development Control)
March 2000
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