Bailiff gets past local outcry to provide site for Travellers

DAMIAN LE BAS
Editor 

Above: The single acre smallholding in Bullamoor, near Northallerton, Yorks, which will now become a site for Travellers

AN ENFORCEMENT officer has won a battle to convert his one-acre smallholding into a site for a homeless Gypsy family. 

Peter Lovell, who works as a bailiff by day, won permission to develop the site in Bullamoor, near Northallerton, on appeal. It was initially refused, following opposition from locals.

At the appeal hearing, government planning inspector Richard McCoy said that there was clearly a need for sites in the area.

"We shouldn't tar everyone with the same brush"

Bailiffs are hardly renowned for sympathising with Gypsies and Travellers, yet Mr Lovell said "We can't forget these people who have nowhere to live and we shouldn't tar everyone with the same brush".

"There are some nutcases who live on Traveller sites, but there are nutcases who live in million pound homes as well," he said.

Mr Lovell told Travellers' Times that he had been asked to take part in the infamous eviction of Dale Farm in 2011 but refused.

He now intends to sell or rent the site to a Gypsy or Traveller family who are currently without a place to live.

The Northern Echo had noted that there was fierce opposition to the new site, including from parish and town councils. 

There were already two sites in the area, at Bankside Close in Sowerby and Hill Field Close, Seamer.

At the appeal hearing, however, Mr Lovell pointed to a lack of space and bad management at both sites, which made them unpopular with Travellers.

Site "would provide a settled base"

In his judgement of the appeal, Richard McCoy stated that the proposal "would provide a settled base that would be of a scale that would not dominate the nearest settled community" or "harmfully change the living conditions of nearby residents."

Instead, it would "provide acceptable living conditions for future occupiers, would reduce the need for long-distance travel and would not place undue pressure on the local infrastructure," Mr McCoy said.