Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60
- 79)
TUESDAY 22 JUNE 2004
MS SIOBHAN
SPENCER, MS
CATHERINE BEARD,
MR TOM
SWEENEY, MR
CLIFF CODONA
AND MR
CHARLES SMITH
Q60 Mr Sanders: That is something
that the Committee will have to take on board.
Mr Smith: I think we need to stop
calling it housing. We need to start looking at accommodation.
That takes in everything. I mean, it is not only caravans, people
live in boats and all sorts of things, so we should start talking
about accommodation needs rather than just housing. Not everybody
wants to live in a house or chooses to live in a house. If we
started looking at a broader aspect of "accommodation for
everybody", and the so-called housing departments dealt with
that, in a wider spectrum, we would start looking at everybody's
needs, instead of just bricks and mortar and a roof over your
head. I think that is the problem, we have a closed mind to housing.
Q61 Chairman: We need to move on
with the questions.
Ms Beard: Could I just say something.
Q62 Chairman: Very briefly.
Ms Beard: We feel that we have
to justify our very existence because we are gypsy people. We
do not believe our cultural way of life has ever been recognised
or respected. We feel now it is about time that it was because,
after all, the gypsy men of this country fought in two World Wars,
for King and country. They died, or came back with very serious
injuries when they came back from them wars. Our women worked
on the land and they worked in the ammunition factories. I think
it is time now that we received the equality that we should have.
Q63 Mr Sanders: The development in
Ireland of providing group housing alongside sites, is that something
we ought to look at piloting in this country?
Mr Codona: Could I please say
I have something very desperate to tell this committee about the
structure of the traveller and gypsy community. The reason that
housing terrifies us so much is because we do not put any of our
elderly into homes. We do not send any of our children off to
boarding schools. We keep our family units together. We keep the
oldest member of the community to the youngest member of the community
within that family group. It is our very existence. To be put
into housing is a deep threat to us, to have our children taken
away from us, to be able to look after our elderly.
Q64 Chairman: The point is that it
does appear, in Southern Ireland, that putting up some houses
with caravan pitches next to them is working.
Mr Sweeney: That is by choice.
Q65 Chairman: Yes, that is by choice,
but by choice it is working.
Mr Codona: Could I say that in
the studies that have been done in Ireland they have also found
that most family units came to live in a family unit, whether
it be the Smith family, the Jones or the Coopers. When you do
a social housing project and you put the one family in it, all
of a sudden—and this has already happened in Ireland—one
of the family members decides to leave to go somewhere else, then
the council authority is left with a surplus property but not
necessarily another outside family is going to come and use that
property, because they have the one family living there and there
might be tensions within them two different families.
Q66 Mr O'Brien: In your submission
you suggest that 90% of the planning applications by gypsies and
travellers are rejected by local authorities.
Ms Spencer: Yes.
Q67 Mr O'Brien: The Office of the
Deputy Prime Minister disputes that. What evidence do you have
to support that?
Mr Codona: I can sit here today
and speak in a court of law to say that planning applications
in this country are not dealt with properly at all.
Q68 Mr O'Brien: What evidence do
you have that 90% of applications fail?
Mr Codona: I am fighting it from
every angle with every law in this country to prove that my own
particular planning application has not been dealt with properly.
I am here as concrete evidence of it.
Q69 Mr O'Brien: I accept that maybe
they are not completed in the manner you would request, but you
say that nine out of every 10 planning applications are rejected.
What evidence do you have for that?
Ms Spencer: We started trying
to help them with planning applications 12 years ago, and I have
only ever had, out of 22, one passed at committee, at the first
development and control stage. That is out of 22 planning applications.
Q70 Mr O'Brien: We find that in different
regions there are different problems, mostly because of land shortage
and others. Have you done a trawl? Particularly Mr Smith, as Chairman
of the Council, have you entered into a trawl of the various regions
to find out what planning applications have been submitted and
rejected?
Mr Smith: No. I mean, unfortunately,
we are not an organisation of huge funding. We work on a few hundred
pounds a year. If you want to fund us, we would be very happy
to do that for you.
Q71 Chairman: Let me just go through
the process.
Mr Smith: I mean, with the greatest
of respect.
Q72 Chairman: Is it really that people
are picking sites which are unsuitable or is it that the neighbours
object, that as soon as you say gypsy site, people object?
Ms Spencer: Yes.
Mr Smith: Could I come back on
the evidence. ACERT (The Advisory Council for the Education of
Roma and Travellers), a gypsy organisation, actually did a report,
which was not published by the Government, it was commissioned
by the Government and that actually showed in there a report that
90% of applications are refused. So there is actually evidence
that has been researched.
Q73 Mr O'Brien: Is that report available?
Mr Smith: The Government did not
ever allow it to be published, but I am sure you could get a copy
of it.
Q74 Chairman: We will pursue that
issue.
Mr Smith: I mean, we could probably
get a copy of it for you.
Q75 Sir Paul Beresford: One of the
things the Chairman is saying is it could be down to the selection
of sites, especially in the South East where it is high demand.
I know of some applications that have been turned down on sites
that nothing ever will be built on: it is green belt, it is flood
plain, and so on and so forth. Whoever advised the applicants
misadvised them, or the advice was ignored, because there is no
hope.
Mr Smith: The problem with that,
sir, is that there is nowhere identified in those local development
plans where a gypsy can go and buy a bit of land and develop the
site as there is with housing, because in Government guidance
every single definition of land, every single designation, does
not allow gypsy sites to be built on it. There is nowhere you
can actually legally build a gypsy site in this whole country.
Q76 Sir Paul Beresford: Coming back
to the question, the question is on refusals. With many of the
refusals, especially in the South East, where there is high demand,
the application is unrealistic. Do you agree?
Mr Smith: No, I would not. Because,
if you are in a situation where you could not build a house anywhere
legally, you would end up with shanty towns, like they end up
with in South America—
Ms Beard: That seems—
Mr Smith:—because you could
not build a property.
Q77 Chairman: One at a time. It is
very difficult for the shorthand writer taking a record and it
is very difficult for me. And I have to warn you that if we are
going to get through all the questions we do have to have shorter
answers.
Mr Smith: If there was nowhere
legal for you to build your house, and you had nowhere to live,
where would you go? You would have to go somewhere. We cannot
continually go round and round the M25.
Q78 Chairman: No local authorities
in their development plans have sites earmarked or land earmarked
which could be used for travellers.
Mr Smith: No.
Ms Spencer: Could I just say people
are now starting to come to us and say, "Can you help us
look for a piece of land?"—to try to stop people immediately
going out and perhaps getting green belt or agricultural land.
And there is a price thing here, because there is a problem for
a lot of families, because obviously if you go and have a look
at some little bits that are up for residential in a lot of places,
the land is sky high. It is absolutely sky high. But, on top of
that, a couple of years ago now we gave a family some advice not
to buy land in a certain place. I said, "If you are looking
to buy land, look at this, look at this, look at this." They
took our advice. Let me tell you, there is nothing wrong with
this little bit of land that they bought. It was perfect. It had
got planning permission on it for an office block and a disabled
toilet. We thought, "Great, that is perfect for the mum"—because
we were wanting a disability block for the old woman—and
they failed it. They still failed it. They fail it because of
public opinion. They fail it because you get perhaps a local council
who will fill a hall with 300 people—they rally so many
people together that it gets moved from the council offices and
we go to another building because they have rallied that many
people against you. I had a planning committee in Blackpool—
Q79 Chairman: I understand those
difficulties, but, in a sense, if the system is working, although
local public opinion may be against you, you are able to appeal
and get permission. The appeals are also going down as well.
Ms Spencer: The appeals are going
down as well and it is very, very, very hard, it is very, very
time consuming, and it is very, very stressful for the families.
Mr Smith: And something that is
happening—
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