Scottish Traveller faces eviction after bedroom tax imposed on Traveller site

By MIKE DOHERTY

News reporter 

Above: Fiona Townsley outside her mobile home, holding her files from the case

SCOTTISH Traveller Fiona Townsley is facing eviction after Perth and Kinross Council imposed a bedroom tax on her site - and she refused to pay, arguing that the charge does not apply to mobile homes and that it would indirectly discriminate against her on grounds of her race.

The tax – officially called “under occupancy tax” – means people of a working age in social housing who have a spare bedroom will find housing benefit claims reduced by about £40 to £80 a month.The hated tax, brought in by the Conservative and Liberal Coalition Government, is affecting over half a million people across the United Kingdom.

Mrs Townsley, who cares for her elderly mother who also lives on the site, says: “I refused to pay it. All the other chalets are three-bedroom as well, so I cannot move to a smaller chalet on the site. The council would not replace my chalet with a one bedroom chalet. I also offered to move back into a trailer on the site, but they refused that as well.”

A recent Housing Benefit tribunal on MrsTownsley’s case has been adjourned to gather more information. The council now agree the chalets provided on the site are mobile homes but they argue they are dwellings owned by, and rented from, the council and thus subject to the bedroom tax. They also argue that the weekly rental charge (£103 per week) is for the dwelling but not for the pitch, even though, as Mrs Townsley has argued; “you cannot in reality have one without the other”.

If Mrs Townsley loses the case, she may be evicted from her home and forced into bricks and mortar housing. The discrimination element of Mrs Townsley’s challenge rests on the fact that because there is so little choice in alternative suitable accommodation for Gypsies and Travellers, the bedroom tax impacts upon them more than people from the settled community.

Michelle Lloyd from the Scottish Minority Ethnic Carers of People Project (MECOPP), who has worked with Mrs Townsley on this and other cases and who provided evidence to the tribunal said: "The impact of imposing the 'bedroom tax' on carers like Fiona is inappropriate and grossly unfair, she faces the very real prospect of being forced out of her home. Tenants on Gypsy/Traveller sites have fewer rights, and no security of tenure, compared to mainstream tenants - Fiona has fought tirelessly to highlight these inequalities."

Mrs Townsley, a real fighter for Gypsy and Traveller rights is not going to give. “I want to stay within my own Travelling Community,” says Mrs Townsley.