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MENTER welcomes the Equalities Review, but is concerned about the definitions of equality and queries whether an equality framework can go beyond the six equality strands (Race, Gender, Sexual Orientation, Religion and Belief, Disability and Age).
The Equalities Review commissioned by the Prime Minister, published its Interim Report for consultation in March 2006. The Review is an independent investigation of the causes of persistent discrimination and inequality in Britain. It aims to provide an understanding of the long term and underlying causes of disadvantage and make practical recommendations on key policy priorities.
The Interim Report details the findings of the Equalities Panel on the extent of persistent inequalities in the UK; suggests how these may be addressed; and proposes a framework for determining priorities for action. For further information on the Equalities Review and the Interim Report, please visit www.theequalitiesreview.org.uk
The consultation period on the findings of the Interim Report ended on June 5th. To download a copy of MENTER’s response to the Interim Report, click here.
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We at the East Anglian Gypsy Council have been campaigning for recognition of the accommodation needs of the Gypsy/Traveller Community for the past thirty years now, with successive Governments seeing the lifestyle as a law and order issue rather than one of accommodation, until now that is.
Last December (2004) the ODPM published a Consultation Document entitled ‘Planning for Gypsy and Traveller sites’, The content of which is a new circular to replace DoE Circular 1/94 “Gypsy Sites and Planning”. The new circular is the result of the Governments commitment to review circular 1/94 made during the passage of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004.
DoE circular 1/94 provides advice on the procedures to be followed in ensuring that the planning system recognises, protects and facilitates the traditional lifestyle of Gypsies and Travellers by identifying and making provision in development plans for their land and accommodation requirements.
The new circular updates and supersedes this advice in the light of the new act and puts into place advice on what procedures now need to be followed.
The main changes compared to circular 1/94 are:
A change in the definition of Gypsy (paragraph 13 ’People of nomadic habit regardless of race or religion’). The new definition recognises that Gypsies may stop travelling, either permanently or temporarily for health or educational reasons or because of caring responsibilities. In the new Circular “Gypsies and Travellers” are defined as meaning “A person or persons who have a traditional cultural preference for living in caravans and who either pursue a nomadic habit of life or have pursued such a habit and have ceased travelling, whether permanently or temporarily, because of the education needs of their dependant children, or ill health, old age, or caring responsibilities (whether of themselves, their dependants living with them , or the widows and widowers of such dependants), but does not include members of an organised group of travelling show people or circus people, travelling together as such”. A requirement that local authorities identify suitable sites for Gypsies and Travellers in their development plans and documents. Only exceptionally will it be acceptable to meet needs by criteria for the identification of sites without identifying any specific sites. Improved guidance on drafting the criteria in development plans against which applications for sites not allocated in the plan will be judged. Circular 1/94 said that criteria should be clear and realistic. The new guidance strengthens this advice saying that they should be fair, reasonable, realistic and effective in delivering sites. This should result in positive criteria offering greater certainty to applicants and local residents An explanation of how local housing assessments will assist local authorities to quantify the level of need and how the new planning system and the involvement of Regional Planning boards will help to translate that need into allocations in the planning process. A section on the Local Authorities responsibilities under the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000. The inclusion of advice on how Local Authorities should seek to engage with Gypsies and Traveller and build trust.The inclusion of advice to Gypsies and Travellers, and their Representatives, as to how they should engage with the planning system
The full document can be obtained by contacting the following webpage: http://www.odpm.gov.uk/stellent/groups/odpm_planning/documents/page/odpm_plan_03359 8.pdf. Respondents have until the 18th March to respond.
Here are some of our thoughts on the paper.
The document is encouraging and well balanced and the advice is more likely to produce sites than hitherto with a complete turnaround in government policy towards Gypsy and Traveller accommodation.
Indeed the statement in paragraph 1 of the circular represents a commitment that will protect the lifestyle of the Gypsy/Traveller community, by providing the sites the community requires to pursue the traditional lifestyle, whilst also recognising the need for some sections of the community to settle but maintain their cultural traditions. This policy goes a long way towards providing grounds for improvement in relations between the Gypsy/Traveller and mainstream communities, relationships that have been tested severely by previous policy, as such the East Anglian Gypsy Council welcome this statement.
“The Government is committed to ensuring that members of the Gypsy and Traveller communities should have the same access to decent and appropriate accommodation as every other citizen and that there are sufficient sites available to meet their needs”. We are pleased to see a regional as well as local perspective to the system, which will go a long way in avoiding the situation where authorities that are providing sites are swamped with people from neighbouring non-providing authorities. A regional perspective will also provide a more balanced geographic and planed provision, however the advice contained in the new circular and the requirements in the New Planning and Compulsory Purchase act will need to be better enforced and monitored than previously if provision is to meet the objectives. One of our concerns is that Gypsy and Travellers are not ghettoised with provision restricted to one small part of an authorities area, this was a problem with provision under the 1968 Caravan sites act and has caused those living on sites provided prior to 1994 some problems with discrimination and racism at what are seen as Gypsy enclaves. The East Anglian Gypsy Council believe that if any piece of land is suitable for any other development then it should be suitable for development as a caravan site. We are pleased to see a change in the definition of Gypsy: although the new definition still does not recognise the true ethnic status of the Romany (Gypsy) people it does change the emphasis from mobility to a cultural emphasis. Unfortunately it still attempts to exclude by specifying the situations that Gypsies and Travellers may settle, it must be inclusive, and would be much a much better statement if no attempt was made to specify, the example below is an edited version that is much less descriptive and more inclusive A person or persons who have a traditional cultural preference for living in caravans and who either pursue a nomadic habit of life or have pursued such a habit but have ceased travelling, whether permanently or temporarily for social or economic reasons, but does not include members of an organised group of travelling show people or circus people, travelling together as such.
All in all the new Circular is a well thought out and much fairer document, however by itself it will do no more to increase provision than that of circular 1/94, the real work will be in the enforcement of the advice in the light of the provisions of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004.
We must be diligent in making sure that the terms of this act are indeed adhered to when the needs of the community are assessed and provision planned.
John Day. Assistant General Secretary. East Anglian Gypsy Council
www.eagc.org.uk
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