Villagers mount vigil against unauthorised gypsy site

The Meriden gap, the geographical centre of England, is a luscious green belt between Coventry and Solihull that prevents urban sprawl. At the start of the May bank holiday in 2010, the village suddenly aquired 50 new residents. Romany gypsies mounted a classic “landgrab” that has enraged some local residents.

Across the lane from the gypsy site, a small but vocal group of villagers has set up its own camp in protest They have received huge amounts of publicity. The issue is portrayed as a simple planning row, but the gypsies tell a very different story.

Fighting eviction

The gypsies have lost their planning application and are fighting eviction. They rarely give interviews, as they feel they have been stereotyped, but we were given rare access to the site.

There, I met the Townsleys, one of eight families who have moved their caravans on to the field. They have spent decades travelling around the Midlands and are well known locally. But now they want a permanent base.

Their eldest daughter, Senga, has cerebal palsy. Her condition has worsened with age and she now needs access to regular medical care. Senga says they had no choice but to move on to this site, because locally and nationally, there is a shortage of authorised pitches. The gypsies bought the field legally for £100,000, moved in and then applied for retrospective planning permission.

I asked Senga if she understood why the locals were angry at the gypsies’ tactics. “Absolutely,” she told me. “Hand up to it, that’s what we did. We did move in knowing the council would be closed on a bank holiday. We did this on the advice of other gypsies and travellers, because we were told only 20 per cent of planning applications are usually granted.”

It is an increasingly common tactic, with an 11 per cent rise in caravans on unauthorised sites. Campaigners say the sitation will only get worse – the coalition government has reversed policies on council provision for travellers and cut budgets for this by £30m. Ministers want to speed up planning disputes, but it often takes years.

Across the road from the gypsy site, some villagers fear that this dispute could turn into the next Dale Farm, the high profile eviction of travellers in Essex which took over a decade.

Protest camp

The Meriden protest camp has been manned by volunteers, They have kept vigil 24/7 for the last 641 days. Their aim, they say, is to keep an eye on the gypsies and to log any further illegal development.

I feel like it’s one law for them and one law for us. Jo Hipwood

I joined Jo Hipwood for an afternoon shift. Mrs Hipwood has lived in the village for nine years and says she is angry that the gypsies flouted planning laws: “I feel like it’s one law for them and one law for us.”

Mrs Hipwood and other volunteers have camped outside, even in the bitter cold weather. They even have their own caravan, which, ironically, Solihull Council has ruled to be an illegal development. The campaigners themselves are now facing eviction.

David Mcgrath is a former councillor who now co-ordinates the residents’ campaign. He lives directly opposite, but denies the campaign is about house prices. “I’m not looking to move, so I’m not interested in trading in my house and making a profit. For me, it’s about the destruction of the greenbelt.”

Increasingly bitter

The dispute has grown increasingly bitter, with claim and counter-claim. And it is a dispute that is being played out across the country, with around 40 or 50 other campaign groups being established to stop gypsy and traveller developments.

For Sanga Townsley’s parents, it is a reflection of society’s changing attitudes towards the gypsy community. “When I was a boy, we could pull up on the field just across the bridge here and nobody would say a word. In fact, the local farmers would hire us for work,” said Mr Townsley.

But today, things are very different, said Mrs Townsley. “Our children are taunted in school, once our neighbours find out who we are, they judge us before they even know who we are.”

The Townsleys feel they are in a Catch 22. Councils do not want to provide pitches because it is unpopular with voters, so gypsies have resorted to buying and developing their own land. But this too is unpopular.

Campaigners on all sides want clearer guidelines on provision of gypsy and traveller pitches. Solihull Councill is due to rule on Tuesday night on whether the residents will have to dismantle their camp – and the high court will rule in March whether the Meriden gypsies can stay.