Memorandum by the Local Government Association
(LGA) (GTS 38)
1.1 The Local Government Association speaks
for nearly 500 local authorities and its membership includes every
local authority in England and Wales. The LGA provides the national
voice for local communities in England and Wales; its members
represent over 50 million people, employ more than two million
staff and spend over £65 billion on local services.
1.2 The LGA welcomes the opportunity to
provide evidence for the committee on Gypsy and Traveller site
provision. The Association provided detailed responses to past
ODPM consultations on the draft Framework and Operational Guidance
on Managing Unauthorised Encampments and has contributed to debate
on site and wider service provision. Outlined below is a position
statement agreed by LGA members, that draws together some of the
key issues for local government in relation to site provision.
1.3 In 1994 the Criminal Justice and Public
Order Act ended the statutory duty for local authorities to create
sites. This has increased the number of Travellers now living
on unauthorised sites and has had a severe impact on their health
and educational opportunities and general welfare opportunities.
The increase in unauthorised sites has also caused great inconvenience
for the settled community, and has raised tensions between Travellers
and Non Travellers.
1.4 Overall, the lack of adequate site provision
for Gypsy and Traveller communities and the problems arising from
unauthorised camping have become issues of increasing concern
for local authorities in both rural and urban areas. Managing
unauthorised camping and undertaking legal proceedings and enforcement
against planning breeches can be extremely time consuming and
costly for local authorities. For example, Mid Beds district council
has been engaged in court proceedings for several years in an
enforcement case regarding the occupation of private land by Travellers
without planning permission. The cost of this work to date (excluding
officer time) has been £443,000. This is a considerable amount
of money for any authority and particularly a District Council.
1.5 The Local Government Association welcomed
the Governments commitment to improve site provision and the announcement
in March 2003 of new money to help local authorities refurbish
and provide temporary Gypsy sites in England. The recent Guidance
on Managing Unauthorised camping suggests that local authorities
and police forces work together across boundaries on a voluntary
basis to assess needs, make provision and develop strategies for
unauthorised camping over the wider area.
1.6 However, the LGA believes that site
provision can only really be improved in the longer-term by re-instating
a statutory duty on local authorities to "make" or "facilitate"
provision supported by a central subsidy. Capital funding should
be extended to include the revenue costs of ongoing maintenance
and management of sites. We believe this is fundamental to helping
to tackle resistance from settled communities and to overcoming
political barriers to provision. Local authorities face a range
of competing service delivery pressures and unless there is a
statutory duty supported by adequate funding it is unlikely that
site provision and wider service provision for Travelling communities
will be developed as a priority area of work for both financial
and political reasons.
1.7 There are a number of issues that need
to be further considered in terms of the practical implementation
of a "statutory duty" and in our recent response to
the Operational guidance we included the need to consider the
following points:
— Given there may be little or no demand
for sites in some areas, and because of the characteristics of
an area, little or no prospect of meeting them in others, it may
be counterproductive to impose a duty on all local authorities
to make provision in their localities. However, there needs to
be collective responsibility on all local authorities to ensure
adequate provision within their localities. A statutory duty could
be taken forward on a county or sub-regional level.
— The LGA suggests that the Government
puts in place a system of Traveller needs assessments for Traveller
accommodation throughout the country by region, much as it plans
permanent housing provision. There needs to be an objective and
robust means of assessing need and a requirement to do it. In
areas where there is demonstrated to be no need, there needs to
be a definite timescale for review because Travellers' travelling
patterns can often change.
— Despite the small numbers in land
use terms we believe new Regional Spatial Strategies should include
site needs assessment as part of regional housing assessments
in order to help overcome barriers and improve site provision.
Identification of the location of sites should be determined by
local or sub-regional delivery mechanisms.
1.8 We would also like to draw attention
to the need for a rent setting system for public sites. Currently,
in two tier authorities responsibilities for housing delivery
rest with district councils rather than county councils. While
many county councils are proactive in providing sites they are
not eligible under current legislation to receive full housing
benefit for Gypsies and Travellers residing on their sites and
have also reported massive cuts in rent levels set by Rent Officers
in their areas. Some county councils have indicated that this
makes the provision of sites in their localities economically
unviable and affects their ability to plough back money into sustaining
and improving provision and services for Travelling Communities.
The LGA advocates the need for a rent-setting system for all public
sites, to end the need for Rent Officer references and to address
the issue of housing benefit shortfall. Unless these issues are
addressed the Government's objective of improving site provision
at a national level could be seriously undermined.
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