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A council and its councillors can benefit from changing their approach to traveller families, says a representative of those communities.

Calderdale Council has had issues recently with travellers making unauthorised incursions onto council land, including parks in Shelf, Lightcliffe and Brighouse, with legal and clean-up costs resulting.

But a different approach can improve relations all round, the chief Executive of Leeds-based Gypsy and Traveller Exchange (GATE), Ellie Rogers, told councillors.

She said more than 800 travellers, from different ethnic minorities, who lived across West Yorkshire were registered with GATE, which helps them with services including advocacy, mental health support work and more.

Ellie Rogers, CEO of the Leeds Gypsy and Traveller Exchange (GATE) charity, spoke to Calderdale councillors about the need to change approaches to travelling families.

A lot of issues arose through many travelling families’ first contact in an area being enforcement or, if a site planning permission was sought, local communities, often supported by elected members, leading campaigns against them, said Ms Rogers.

This meant there was a history of travellers not seeing local authorities as being for them.

Councillors could help being more educated about travellers to understand why they wanted a place for their homes and work with them on planning applications.

“Often it’s fear rather than any actual unrest that people are worrying about, people have a lot of negative perceptions about gypsies and travellers,” she said.

A bow top wagon is led through the centre of town on the first day of the Appleby Horse Fair on August 12, 2021 in Appleby, England. The fair is an annual gathering for Gypsy, Romany and travelling communities. The event has existed under the protection of a charter granted by James II since 1685 and it remains one of the key meeting points for these communities. Photo by Ian Forsyth/Getty Images

Solutions could include negotiated stopping sites, she told councillors – this had actually gone on for centuries in arrangement with landowners, for seasonal work and so on.

In Leeds the group worked with people, including the council, a different way to a primary enforcement approach, with some success, said Ms Rogers.

Ms Rogers said it was not true people’s lives would be disrupted and often travelling families were blamed for rubbish dumped soon after in places they had cleaned up before leaving – she had witnessed this.

Some were on permanent sites, some in houses, others owned their caravans, moving among unauthorised encampments.

Other families had “yards” where their caravans could be parked although there were no authorised yards in Calderdale, said Ms Rogers.

She spoke as part of a wide ranging debate session about travellers by Calderdale Council’s Place Scrutiny Board at Halifax Town Hall.

Call for Calderdale Council to take a different approach towards traveller communities