The Travellers Advice Team at Community Law Partnership (CLP) advises and represents Gypsies and Travellers throughout England and Wales and has dealt with (and continues to deal with) many cases in London. We are just responding here to the piece in the draft London Plan on Gypsies and Travellers: https://www.london.gov.uk/what-we-do/planning/london-plan/new-london-plan/draft-new-london-plan/chapter-4-housing/policy-h16-gypsy-and-traveller-accomodation

Due to the virtual impossibility of finding stopping places in London, the vast majority of those Gypsies and Travellers in London who require pitches have been forced, for the time being, into housing. The dire situation has been greatly exacerbated by the discriminatory and prejudicial new definition of Traveller contained in ‘Planning policy for traveller sites’ (2015). In this context, we fully support and welcome the proposals contained in this section and, above all, the proposed definition of Gypsy/Traveller.

Our only criticism relates to 14.8.9 where we would point out that all existing pitches are protected by the Mobile Homes Act 1983 and pitches should only be ‘re-located’ or ‘re-provided’ if the Gypsy and Traveller residents voluntarily agree to this. Aside from that, we look forward to this section being brought into force as soon as possible.

CLP 26 February 2018