Woodside Gypsy Site
In 1997, 27 Gypsy families clubbed together to buy Woodside, a 17-acre touring caravan park with full planning permission. But when the Gypsies moved on to the park, Mid-Bedfordshire council claimed they did not have permission for permanent occupation and issued enforcement notices. In July last year the council set aside £230,000 to finance clearance of the community. On Monday (24), the council is going to the high court to be allowed to carry out its enforcement notices, forcing the community back on the road.
The Woodside caravan park is unlike any of the 325 council Gypsy sites in this country. It isn’t surrounded by barbed wire fences designed to keep the inhabitants in. It hasn’t even been built near a sewage works or any other industrial facility. It looks, in fact, more like a modern hamlet than a ghetto, except that the homes are on wheels rather than stone foundations.
At the centre of the community is a large green where children play in safety. Yet the council wants the site removed on the grounds that it is having an adverse impact on the environment. The Gypsies say the council is using an environmental smokescreen to hide their bigotry.
“They say we are out of character with the area, but how can we be when we’ve always been here?” says Woodside spokesman and National Traveller Action Group chairman Clifford Codona, who, like many Gypsies, once worked as a seasonal agricultural labourer. “They don’t need us any more, so they want to expel us. They can’t stand the fact that, for the first time ever, Gypsies have their own village green!”
Current government policy recommends that travellers should house themselves on their own land, yet Gypsy families who attempt to do so are often denied planning permission. While over 80% of planning applications from settled people are granted consent more than 90% of applications from Gypsies are refused.
If you believe it’s time to stop shoving British Gypsies from pillar to post, they need your help to turn away the bailiffs. Come the night before the expected eviction attempt from Monday onwards. Enjoy a midsummer night of Gypsy singsong around the fires – and be ready to protest when the council and private contractors come. There’s plenty of room for tents and caravans. Woodside is in the village of Hatch near Sandy, Bedfordshire just minutes off the A1.
Friends and Families of Travellers are maintaining an update on the Woodside situation at the site in Bedfordshire, here:
http://www.f-f-t.demon.co.uk/fft/WOODSIDE.HTM
WOODSIDE
Caravan Park
Hatch, Near Sandy, off Al
Bedfordshire
call: 01206 523 528
here is a map of the area:
http://www.streetmap.co.uk/streetmap.dll?G2M?X=515520&Y=247360&A=Y&Z=5
Please Support These English Gypsies in Their Time of Need!
http://foclark.tripod.com/gypsy/bedfordshire.html
No room to move
The government recommends that Gypsies should house themselves on their own land, yet those who try that are often denied planning permission. Jake Bowers on an ancient problem unresolved
Jake Bowers Guardian
Wednesday June 5, 2002
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4427029,00.html
Council denies Gypsy prejudice
Tuesday, 29 October, 2002, 08:41 GMT BBC News
A council locked in a five-year battle to evict Gypsies from land they own has denied that its stance is politically motivated.
The Woodside Gypsies say they have set up a “pioneer community” on the land they bought near the hamlet of Hatch in Bedfordshire.
But Mid Bedfordshire District Council says planning permission for the site does not extend to 12 months of the year and wants them to move on.
The eviction is scheduled to take place on Monday 4 November.
Brian E. Collier, leader of the district council, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the issue is simply one of planning permission.
He denied the action was politically motivated, adding that some of the group had already left the site.
The council, Cllr Collier added, would wish to encourage Gypsies to buy land and settle down “but on land with the type of permission that is required”.
“[This site] had permission for touring caravans, they are not expected to stay there more than a few days. There is only permission for touring caravans between April and October.
“This [Gypsy] site is a permanent site and has been a permanent site since the first enforcement action in 1998.”
Cllr Collier stressed that some of the group had left the site since the injuction had been obtained in June.
And he added: “Some of the families have been in discussions with the council about other land. But unfortunately that land was not to be found for sale.”
In 1997, 28 Gypsy families clubbed together to buy the land which has planning permission to be a caravan site.
It followed government advice in the early 1990s that Gypsies should buy land to manage themselves.
Crucially, though, the land the Woodside Gypsies bought only had permission for use from April to October for touring caravans.
The council says that Gypsies did not adequately seek or subsequently have approval for any work which would turn a former holiday park into a permanent settlement.
And earlier this year, the families lost this battle in the High Court and the council set an eviction date of 1 November, though this is expected to be set back.
The gypsies say that they are victims of discrimination.
“We came to Woodside because we wanted freedom to be who we are but also respect from the rest of society,” said one, Cliff Codona.
“The rest of society doesn’t want us to roam up and down, not least because that means we don’t pay taxes.
“So when we do try and settle, we come up against a horrific situation like this.
“I’d be the first to admit that we got some of this wrong, not least in our understanding of the law.
“But evicting us will send us back in time, and we will resist it absolutely.”
* * * * * *
Gypsy experiment faces eviction
Monday, 28 October, 2002, 12:29 GMT
By Dominic Casciani
BBC News Online community affairs reporter
A Gypsy community aiming to change perceptions of their way of life is facing eviction from land they own after losing a five-year legal battle.
Down a little country lane in Bedfordshire, shielded from the surroundings by tall trees, you will find the Woodside Gypsies.
As you drive into the Woodside caravan park near the hamlet of Hatch, children are playing in a paddock as horses graze. Mothers are hanging out clothes to dry and a few young men are repairing a van’s engine.
There are a lot of people who don’t understand us or our culture – evicting us will send us back in time, and we will resist it absolutely
“Welcome to our pioneer village,” says Cliff Codona, the unofficial manager of Woodside. “Not what you expected is it?”
To all intents and purposes, the five-year-old Woodside project is a self-enclosed community. It has roads, electricity, water and telephones.
Family plots and caravans are neatly fenced off. There is a paddock for the horses and a peaceful copse at the back.
Woodside began as an experiment in how British Gypsies live. But it may end this week in a bitter eviction battle as residents are removed from land they actually own.
In the past 20 years there has been a decline in the number of local authority sites available to travelling communities.
In the early 1990s, Whitehall suggested Gypsies should buy sites they could manage themselves.
Which is what happened with Woodside. When 28 families, led by the Codonas, clubbed together to buy the caravan site in 1997, they thought they had found what they needed.
“We were roaming up and down,” said Cliff. “But I was listening carefully to people like Tony Blair and what he was saying about how important his family was to him personally.
“We thought we now had a chance to get somewhere.”
“We wanted to be seen to be doing the right thing. I didn’t want my grandchildren growing up branded thieves and vagabonds.”
The Gypsies saw Woodside as a way to provide cultural security to its residents while recognising obligations to wider society.
The plan was for a part travelling, part settled community, managed by those living there.
It was, in their view, a halfway point between the cultural anchors of the Gypsy travelling traditions and the pressure from mainstream society to settle.
Many of the parents saw Woodside as a way of getting their children into full-time education. There were plans for a community centre which, among other things, would improve access to health workers.
For instance, at least a dozen children born at Woodside have been among the first in their families to get the key childhood vaccinations at the right times. There was only one problem: Woodside was not lawful.
Before it was sold to the Gypsies, Woodside had planning permission for a number of permanent buildings, such as a toilet block.
Mid Bedfordshire district council says that Gypsies did not adequately seek or subsequently have approval for any work which would turn a former holiday park into a permanent settlement.
In response, the Gypsies argued that a touring holiday park was effectively a permanent site with a higher density of residents than they themselves wanted.
Earlier this year, the families lost this battle in the High Court and the council has set an eviction date of 4 November.
The costs of the eviction could be as high as £180,000, though it is unclear if the council will seek to recover this from the Gypsies by seizing property.
So even though the families own the land, they do not have the legal right to live on it.
The gypsies say that they are victims of discrimination.
A spokesman for the council said that it is simply enforcing planning laws applicable to all. It points out that government inspectors have dismissed almost a dozen appeals by the Gypsies.
Since then, the mood at Woodside has been grim. Many of the families have already cut their losses and gone, even though Woodside is something of a cause celebre among travelling communities and their supporters.
The original residents still at Woodside say they will not leave and are prepared to barricade themselves in.
A number of travelling families unconnected to the original project have arrived as word went around that there were plots available away from the roadside – precisely the kind of instability Woodside’s founders say they set out to end.
“We came to Woodside because we wanted freedom to be who we are but also respect from the rest of society,” said Cliff Codona.
“The rest of society doesn’t want us to roam up and down, not least because that means we don’t pay taxes.
“So when we do try and settle, we come up against a horrific situation like this. I’d be the first to admit that we got some of this wrong, not least in our understanding of the law.
“People have got to take time to get to know each other. There are a lot of people who don’t understand us or our culture.
“But evicting us will send us back in time, and we will resist it absolutely.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2370883.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2368099.stm
Earlier this year, the government annonced these measures:
A New Approach To Tackling Unauthorised Traveller Camps http://tash_lodge.blogspot.com/2002_06_30_tash_lodge_archive.html#78614087
Traveller Law Reform Bill http://tash_lodge.blogspot.com/2002_07_07_tash_lodge_archive.html#78724214
