End of the road?

Until very recently, if you peered through the train window at a certain point on the journey from Bristol to Bath you might have glimpsed a jumble of vehicles in a green field alongside the main road into the Georgian city.

This was the Lower Bristol Road Traveller site, an unauthorised encampment on the Bath and North East Somerset (BANES) council-owned greenbelt. For half a decade [from/until when?] it was home to a fluctuating community living in vans, trailers and makeshift tents and working sporadically on local building sites, festivals, in farms and from Big Issue offices. [did we source this? Feels like a bit of a stereotype]

Now the field has emptied and change is afoot. On 4 June 2014, the authority approved plans to redevelop the plot as a 13-pitch authorised site – a first in the area – in partnership with an as-yet-unnamed housing association, which will manage it.

The site will be funded by up to £1.8 million of council capital and £750,000 of Homes and Community Agency money.

The scheme’s progress is set against a harsh backdrop. At the end of March 2014, of 698 new English pitches allocated [how much?] HCA funding between 2011 to 2015, only 347 had been granted planning permission. They must be completed by March 2015 in order to qualify for the money. [Is there a total pot? As in, is some of it also unallocated?]

Applications frequently don’t get beyond local planning committees – sometimes because of resident opposition. Meanwhile community secretary Eric Pickles’ zealous calling-in of decisions affecting the greenbelt – often against his own inspectors’ recommendations – has seen many other schemes mired in legal limbo. A challenge by five Travellers to Mr Pickles’ policy [is this the right word? Is it an official policy? If not what are they specifically challenging] came to the High Court in June, but judgment is expected to be reserved until a later date.

In Bath, before approval had been even granted, the revamp was presented in sections of the national press as a taxpayer-funded ‘holiday camp’ attracting local ‘fury’ according to the Daily Mail. Some councillors claimed that imposing order – and rent – on the site would drive its occupants away, simply shifting a ‘problem’ somewhere else.

So is this a case of a council doing the right thing and catering for Travellers’ needs, or a questionable and inflammatory waste of time and money?

‘I don’t think you can criticise the council for developing,’ Marc Willers, a barrister specialising in Gypsy and Traveller rights, tells Inside Housing, ‘as long as the site is within reach of amenities and sustainable in planning terms.’

Penny Dane, a community development worker for Gypsies and Travellers at Plymouth and Devon Racial Equality Council, has had extensive involvement in a comparable scheme at Haldon Hill near Exeter (see box).

‘It’s a pragmatic approach – saying, we’re going to develop this into an authorised site, and those who want to can stay. At Marley Head [another unauthorised Devon site], everyone was evicted,’ she says.

BANES council declines to speak to Inside Housing about its plans within the timescales of this article. But a detailed 2012 needs survey – during which independent interviewers attempted to speak to all Gypsies and Travellers living in the area – indicates the authority has done its homework.

The document was produced by Margaret Greenfields, an academic at Bucks New University specialising in Gypsy and Traveller inclusion. It responds to 2012 legislation, which some councils have been slow to act on, telling them to assess local need and produce appropriate plans.

Ms Greenfields’ study highlights the diverse nature of BANES’ Gypsy and Traveller population, which includes a high percentage of New (Age) Travellers as well as members of Irish and Romani communities, boat people and Travelling Showpeople. It identifies a minimum need for 28 pitches, with 24 being required in the next five years.

Minutes from the 4 June planning meeting state that the Lower Bristol Road development represents a ‘start’ towards meeting this need. In a statement to the meeting, officers cite a combination of additional factors – lack of alternative location, low environmental impact, good transport links, and the health and social benefits of allowing residents to maintain local links – as constituting “very special” circumstances meriting greenbelt development.

Preliminary designs include “day-room” amenity buildings and new concrete surfaces, plus environmental elements such as landscaping, lighting and acoustic fencing. The clinical-looking plans contrast with the amenity-free and unruly – though mostly clean and grassy – condition the site is in when Inside Housing visits on a warm early-summer afternoon.

As we arrive on the site, around a dozen residents are sitting down to eat a fine-smelling communal meal, mostly “skipped” from Waitrose – this being Bath – and cooked on an iron grate over an open fire.

Asking the Travellers how they feel about the coming changes is initially met with reticence, partly because of press photographers’ history of ‘spying on’ people from rooftops of nearby industrial units. But with the ice broken, it’s apparent that leaning on the taxpayer for site alterations isn’t a priority.

‘What do we want concrete here for?’ asks 41-year-old Tom, who says residents’ low-impact existence means they can move on ‘without so much as a Rizla being left behind’.

‘The only thing I’d change is having more wheelie-bins,’ adds 53-year-old Patch, a veteran of numerous south-west sites.

People we speak to identify as either English or New Travellers. Some can trace generations of nomadic existence; others abandoned settled lifestyles in the 80s and 90s – and most say their main aspiration is to be left in peace.

Many describe being evicted – sometimes violently – from other sites around England. There are fears the council is trying to ‘squeeze the Traveller’ out of them.

Residents complain the authority’s communication has often been poor. They say a meeting announcing its plans took place in November 2013, but that this was the last they heard from the council until a notice arrived mid-April giving them two weeks to register an interest in the new site or leave.

Seemingly reflecting these gripes, on 20 June the council issues eviction notices to all site residents, causing some alarm. The next week, however, an officer tells them verbally that people who have expressed interest will be accommodated temporarily on an adjacent disused compound.

Nine adults and two children move onto the high-fenced tarmac site – which one resident describes as being like a ‘concentration camp’ compared with the green field over the road – in late July. Despite such grumbles about the interim arrangement, that group includes all but two of the Travellers we speak to, suggesting most new pitches could be filled in advance.

‘I’d take one – a council’s never before offered me the chance to make any kind of better life,’ says Patch’s son Drew, 24.

As the scheme enters its next phase, proper consultation will be crucial, Mr Willers argues. ‘It’s important the council respects the culture of those on site,’ he says.

BANES must consider carefully who will be living at Lower Bristol Road in the long term, adds Simon Ruston, a planning consultant specialising in Gypsy and Traveller sites.

‘New Travellers’ needs and desires may be different to those of Romani Gypsies and Irish Travellers – day-rooms wouldn’t necessarily be appropriate,’ he says.

Mr Ruston points out that, with some exceptions, traditional and New Traveller communities don’t tend to live on the same sites.

‘I’d be interested to know the council’s management plan and allocation policy – I’d hope they consider that in some detail before going ahead,’ he continues.

With work due to start soon, what do the local settled community think? The site is bounded by a steep wooded hill, the railway and the A36, so isn’t directly overlooked. But when we knock on doors on a neighbouring estate in Twerton, we find little hostility towards the Travellers.

‘I’ve got no problem with them being there – I played with Gypsy kids as a child,’ says one young mum.

Her neighbour, a neat older woman, adds: ‘I know they’re there, but we don’t see them. If it means it’s tidier, I’m all in favour of [the council spending money]. People are people.’

Mr Willers says this sounds like a ‘good example’ of how such cases can pan out.

‘Gypsies and Travellers take what many people think is the law into their own hands, but that’s because they’re forced to as no provision has been made,’ he says.

‘Initially old prejudices may come out,’ he goes on. ‘But once everyone realises Travellers don’t have two heads and steal children, integration begins to occur and by the end there’s little by way of objection.’

With plenty of unmet need remaining around Bath and surrounding areas, Mr Ruston adds that he hopes the new site can set a precedent.

‘BANES have a poor history of provision – it’s interesting to see how they’ve responded,’ he concludes. ‘I hope this is the start of the amending of that previous position: they’ve started to do something, and shouldn’t be knocked for it.’