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Moving Forward Together
Gypsy & Traveller Accommodation Issues
York, 16 January 2015
Jo Richardson and Janie Codona
www.dmu.ac.uk/cchr
@socialhousing
Centre for Comparative Housing Research, Faculty of Business & Law, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK
Introduction
• Who we are.
• Aims for the session is to outline accommodation issues for Gypsies and Travellers, including:– Delivery/ planning for sites– Accessing accommodation– Management of sites
• Conflict
Accommodation Issues
• At least 4000 pitches needed (Briscoe 2007)
• Policy failure of previous government, and changes in policy from current government.
Several key issues emerge
• Challenges in building new sites – (1) new planning regime and changing definitions) & (2) conflict and hostility to site applications.
• Problems in accessing accommodation that is suitable
• Poor management and maintenance of some sites that already exist
NPPF and the planning regime
• In a nutshell NPPF advocates Brownfield first.• Supposedly simpler• It also requires 5 year housing supply in Local
Plan• Councils without this are vulnerable to losing
appeals = reactive rather than strategic• Planning Policy for Traveller Sites (PPTS) and
recent consultation
PPTS Consultation• Closed end November 2014
• Seeks to amend definition of Gypsy/Traveller and remove ‘permanently’ so that travelling is central premise.
• Increase ‘protection’ of the Green Belt “very strictly limit development in open countryside”
• Absence of five-year supply will “no longer be a significant material consideration in favour or temporary permission”
• Unmet need and personal circumstances (subject to best interests of the child) are “unlikely to outweigh harm to the Green Belt”.
So ...
Where are Gypsies and Travellers supposed to
live?
A confused construction of Gypsies and Travellers...
Accessing suitable accommodation
• For those who cannot buy their own land (even if planning permission were more likely) there are issues of affordability and need for social accommodation.
• Opaque allocations policies in some areas – those on the list not clear how social pitches are allocated.
• As in the wider housing sector – issues around insecurity on private rented sites.
Poor management and maintenance
• In some areas and on some sites there is poor quality management and maintenance.
• Physical conditions of sheds and access roads – affects quality of life and exacerbates health conditions.
• The JRF 2007 research found that where sites are well managed and seen to be well managed then hostility to new planning applications can be reduced.
Conflict
“The examination that places individuals in a field of surveillance also situates them in a network of writing; it engages them in a whole mass of documents that capture and fix them.” (Foucault, 1977: 189)
Antagonistic practices of articulating Gypsy/ Traveller
identities.
More than words
• Manifestation of negative discourse seen in lack of sites to meet accommodation need.
• Challenges in accessing health, education and other public services.
• Bullying, physical violence and murder (Johnny Delaney, 2003).
Discourse controlling planning conflict
Resolving conflict to facilitate accommodation
• Conflict mapping (JRF report Richardson 2007 – tools from Fisher, S et al, 2000)
• Fisher, R and Ury, W: ‘Getting To Yes’• Negotiation, governance and leadership (JRF
(Richardson, 2007) report outlined the need for strong political leadership and 3 cases for saying ‘yes’ to site provision – business, legal, social/moral).
Good practice examples
• Janie Codona
• Conflict resolution in practice
• Examples of good site management.
Conclusion• Accommodation issues: (1) planning (2)
access to sites (3) management & maintenance
• Confused picture and confusing construct of Gypsy/Traveller in discourse - objection to new sites and physical manifestation of negative discourse
• Conflict resolution may be part of a solution to get people talking to one another not about one another – come to our afternoon workshop to discuss this more.
