No room at the inn

The town of Henley in Oxfordshire may become a no-go area for Gypsies and Travellers after town councillors rejected a request to provide legal sites. They boldly claimed that providing more sites would lead to more illegal sites in the area and an increase in litter.

The Government Office for the South-East is asking the opinions of councils about providing land for Gypsies and Travellers. It hopes that official sites would allow Travellers better access to schools and healthcare, ensure that taxes and rent are collected and reduce illegal sites. Like other counties Oxfordshire County Council would have to provide more sites around the county.

But last Tuesday, members of the town council’s finance strategy and management committee voted to send a letter to GOSE saying they wouldn’t support the plans. Their comments illustrate how ill-informed and bigoted many local councillors are.

Cllr Chris Pye said: “I don’t think we should be obliged to support travellers’ sites. There seem to be more and more travellers and increasing numbers of Eastern Europeans are arriving every year. By creating and providing more sites we are actually encouraging travellers to enter the country.

“Travellers, by their nature, always move on. They won’t want to stay at one legal site. They will come along for a brief time, do some roof repairs and then leave, normally dumping quite a lot of rubbish.”

Cllr Simon Smith said: “There is a travellers’ site at Oakley Wood, near Ewelme. These legal sites encourage more illegal areas. Travellers will see their friends in a legal area and simply pitch up in a field next door. It happened at Oakley Wood.”

Cllr Peter Skolar, who is also a county councillor, said: “If this scheme gave local authorities the power to remove illegal sites then I may be in favour of it but it doesn’t. There are already a lot of legal sites in Oxfordshire — the county council has been awarded a Charter Mark for its work — but we also have an awful lot of illegal sites.”

The Government says gypsies are the “most excluded ethnic group in the UK”. In June last year, there were 3,169 caravans in the South-East of which 2,466 or 78 per cent were authorised. A government report on site provision is due next year. Locations for legal sites will then be decided by local authorities as part of their own area plans.