Easter does it

A Warwickshire Gypsy camp set up over the Easter 2008 holiday weekend has won temporary planning permission for another 4 years. Jake Bowers reports.

The site at Darlingscott, Shipston-on-Stour
At the time it was described as a military operation. On March 22nd 2008, 16 Gypsy families, tired of being evicted from land across Warwickshire, decided to do things for themselves. They entered a field they had bought in Darlingscott, Shipston-on-Stour and started building their own site.

Five months of planning came into action and 48 hours later they had installed water and electricity, put up fences and put down hardcore for 16 family plots. Over a weekend, 16 Gypsy families had achieved in a weekend what hundreds of council officers had failed to do for years. They had established a home.

Unfortunately for them, their nearest neighbour was Tessa Jowell, the government minister responsible for organising the 2012 London Olympics. “Gypsy Hell for Tessa” screamed the Sun newspaper; others joked that if the construction of the Olympics was given to Gypsies, the construction would definitely come in before time and under budget.

The Sun described it as “every homeowners nightmare, they rumbled on with no one around to stop them”. One of the men involved, Tom Brazil saw it differently, he said: “I can understand that people living nearby will be upset, but they have got to appreciate that we have got children who need to go to school to get on in life. We just want a permanent home.” To prove that point, the families applied for planning permission the day they finished building the site.

At a public enquiry in December, Stratford-on-Avon District Council’s decision to refuse planning permission for a Gypsy sitet was heard by an independent planning inspector following an appeal by Ernest Wilson and Families and the appeal has been allowed. The Inspector has now granted a temporary planning permission for the 16 pitch Gypsy site.

A spokeswoman for Stratford-on-avon District Council said: “The temporary permission has been granted due to the existing significant shortfall of Gypsy sites within the district and the personal circumstances of the families. There is a reasonable expectation that new Gypsy sites will become available to meet that need at the end of the temporary planning permission.”

According to the Inspector a temporary permission of 4 years would “provide the opportunity for the appellants to search for alternative sites and for the children on the site to make a seamless as possible transfer to alternative schools should this be necessary”.

“We stand by the Inspector’s decision to grant temporary planning permission for those named individuals and remind the public that the District Council continues to take any planning breaches seriously,” says Councillor Stuart Beese, Portfolio Holder for Planning.

The question is, when the 4 years are up, will these 16 Gypsy families face another Olympic struggle to get what most other people take for granted?