Examination of Witnesses (Questions 180
- 195)
TUESDAY 29 JUNE 2004
MR RICK
BRISTOW
Q180 Mr Betts: You want local authorities
to be given more powers, do you?
Mr Bristow: It is not so much
local authorities to be given more powers; it is they should more
readily enact those that they already have. We would expect more
support from the police. We do not get it from either. I was not
able in that evidence to be specific about the village I am from
so I have tried to be as wide as I could. We have experienced
it in Cottenham—and we know it has been experienced in Billericay
and in Runnymede and parts of Sussex—where the unlawful
occupation of the land as it stands is automatically associated
with dreadful behaviour. It is the behaviour side which creates
tremendous fear in local communities, especially when there are
large numbers involved.
Q181 Mr Betts: So you believe that
the authorities and the police have the powers at present, they
are just not willing to use them?
Mr Bristow: We know for a fact
that the Police Reform Act 2003 gave certain powers to the police;
they do not use them. I believe section 17 of the Crime and Disorder
Act suggests that the police and local authorities should combine
in such a way as to make sure there is no crime or disorder in
a community. The fact is in my local authority they do not join
up, there is no joined-up thinking and as a consequence villages
suffer.
Q182 Christine Russell: Can I continue
this theme and focus not only on the dreadful behaviour, as you
put it, the anti-social behaviour, but also the environmental
crimes, if I could call them that, fly tipping, et cetera. You
have just commented in answer to Mr Betts about the lack of authority
to act. Do you think it is an unwillingness to act or a lack of
joined-up working or insufficient powers? Which one of the three
do you think it is?
Mr Bristow: I do not think it
is insufficient powers. I think there is an unwillingness to act.
Q183 Christine Russell: Is that both
the police and the local authorities?
Mr Bristow: The police situation
is, broadly speaking, this: if there is trouble on site, police
officers will not send their officers in unless they have a more
than equal chance of, as it were, winning the battle.
Q184 Christine Russell: Do you mean
a problem within the community on the site?
Mr Bristow: Within the community,
it could be in the village, it could be on the side streets, it
could be anywhere. If, for argument's sake, 10 Travellers were
involved in a fracas with villagers police would expect to have
a minimum of 10 officers there to sort it out. If they cannot
have the officers there they will not go in because they will
not put their own police officers at risk. That is a fact of life.
I have some sympathy with what they are saying because obviously
they have got a public duty to their officers. As regards the
local authorities, no, I think for the local authorities generally
they do not get themselves involved.
Q185 Chairman: So you are really
saying that somewhere like Cottenham is a no-go area as far as
the police are concerned?
Mr Bristow: No, it is not a no-go
area, that would be inaccurate. What I am saying is that the police
will not send their officers in unless they know those officers
are going into an environment which is safe.
Q186 Christine Russell: If we can
move away from the police and on to the local authorities, in
your experience is there an issue about who exactly is responsible
within the local authorities? Have you discovered confusion as
to whether it is the responsibility of the county council to act
or whether it is the responsibility of the district council? Does
that cause confusion?
Mr Bristow: It seems to cause
confusion between them. For the past 18 months I have written
to both and the county automatically passes it down to district.
If there is any element of something which is quasi criminal the
district will automatically involve the police, so with anti-social
behaviour, for example, it is a police issue, there is no question
about that, but the district council will take absolutely no action
whatsoever.
Q187 Christine Russell: What about
the fly tipping and the rubbish?
Mr Bristow: Other local authorities
might be better but it took our district eight months the first
time to take any action. The second go round took a further five
months and on each occasion it took about a week to clear one
particular area of fen from the rubbish that had been tipped there.
Q188 Mr Cummings: Can I just follow
that one on. Are you saying that there is no one particular body
under the umbrella of the police, the local authorities or social
services dealing with these problems, what I would term as being
an anti-social behaviour unit?
Mr Bristow: There is absolutely
no anti-social behaviour unit. The problems we experienced simply
went unresolved for eight months and they would have continued
beyond that but there was an unfortunate incident in the village.
As regards the agencies, I personally feel the Environment Agency
did not want to know anything about the fly tipping issues and
they passed it back to the district. If you talk to the district
council you tend to go through the planning department.
Q189 Mr Cummings: So you are saying
that there is no one umbrella organisation looking after the various
problems?
Mr Bristow: No.
Q190 Christine Russell: So how do
you think this liaison could be improved in order to tackle the
unauthorised, illegal encampment?
Mr Bristow: I can understand exactly
why Travellers buy a bit of ground and go on it and take their
hard core on, et cetera. To be perfectly honest with you, we do
not have a problem with that. It is when it happens in numbers
and it tends to be—and I hate to be called racist for this—with
the Irish Travellers who influx on a mob basis and there is something
of a mob rule which accompanies them. By using this mob rule you
have to have some respect for them because what they have done
is they have actually protected their culture through the centuries,
but the fact of the matter is when it hits a local village or
any community it is basically intolerable. I live right opposite
the camp and I am very visible to the Irish Travellers now and,
quite frankly, we are on nodding terms, as it were, but there
are a good many older folk in the village who will not leave their
homes even now. Relatives down the fen will not visit except at
certain times of the day. It is just not the sort of situation
that people like.
Q191 Christine Russell: Is it getting
worse?
Mr Bristow: No, it has got better.
Q192 Christine Russell: Why has it
got better?
Mr Bristow: Because the numbers
have diminished. What we had originally on the fen were approximately
33 families of English Travellers. There was always a little bit
of a fracas, there always is, but generally speaking there was
peaceful co-existence. In Easter of last year there were about
800 Irishmen who moved on to the site. It is a 20-acre site and
they started to develop it. The numbers drifted a wee bit from
800 to 400 or 500 through the summer months. Their behaviour did
not change and the site continued to be developed but at the back
end of November there was an unlawful killing in the village.
From what had probably reached something of the order of 100 families,
maybe a little more, it drifted down to 20. Since that time according
to the police and the count there have not been more than 30 families
on the whole site. It is being developed to take 100 plots. We
have maps to show that which again by our estimation could be
200 families, possibly more. That is far too excessive. There
is no way that can be managed by the police or anybody else.
Q193 Chris Mole: Mr Bristow, coming
on to that point, you have argued that the government should make
it mandatory for local authorities alone to provide land to accommodate
Gypsy and Traveller sites. Why should local authorities on their
own be responsible for the provision?
Mr Bristow: Local authorities
are in a position, I believe even more so now because of recent
legislation, to enact compulsory purchase. Again in what I have
read and what I have heard not all Travellers have a great deal
of money so you are looking for a form of affordable housing.
That being the case, I should have thought compulsory purchase
of a certain type of land for that type of accommodation could
be made available, and more easily so, through the local authority.
It takes out the speculation element. Again at Smithy Fen—and
I am sorry to harp on about this but the same does apply at Billericay
and it did apply at Tring—certain men with money will go
in and buy and they will plot it out and then they will sell on
at a far higher rate than they have paid for the plot. I am not
saying it is unlawful but by the same token it does not give you
easy access to the affordable housing that you are looking for
per se.
Q194 Chris Mole: We have heard from
Gypsies and Travellers that they would like to develop small sites
of about six pitches.
Mr Bristow: We have absolutely
no argument with that. Some other Travellers and Gypsies I have
spoken to have gone as high as 20. Smithy Fen started off with
two sites separated by about 300 metres and there were 15 pitches
on one site and 18 on the other, a total of 33 because they were
close enough to be called one site. It is not a problem and the
more manageable the size of the sites the more easily integrated
they are into local communities.
Q195 Chairman: So if there were one
thing that would solve your problems now what would it be?
Mr Bristow: A maximisation of
the site at Cottenham. That would be personal and the same might
apply elsewhere in the country. There are now 37 lawful pitches
as a consequence of appeal, we have got 18 more under appeal,
11 more planning applications in, and then possibly another 30
or 40. It would be nice to have the size of the site capped at,
say, 40 and then we can all try and settle down with our new neighbours.
It is as simple as that. Even when you have transit sites, I can
only flag the warning because I heard the lady before talk in
terms of allowing relatives to visit, et cetera, you have got
to be careful about the unlawful assembly bit because when there
are too many, it is a bit like having a football crowd, they run
riot, even for a short period of time, and it can be terribly
disruptive.
Chairman: On that note, can I thank you
very much for your evidence.
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