A group of Bedfordshire gypsies is challenging an inspector’s refusal of planning consent on the ground that he unjustly associated them with local crime levels.
Lennie Smith is seeking the Court of Appeal’s permission to challenge an inspector’s order that he and his family, together with three other gypsy families, must remove 12 caravans from land at the Woodside Caravan Park, near Hatch, Bedfordshire.
Smith claims that, in taking into account local residents’ fear of crime without provinding evidence that such a fear was justified, the inspector had breached his duties under the Race Relations Act 1976 and the Human Rights Act 1988.
His barrister, Marc Willers, urged the court to “subject the inspector’s decision to anxious scrutiny” to determine whether it had been “tainted” by racial stereotypes and had discriminated against the gypsies by failing to treat them as individuals.
He argued: “Romany gypsies are members of a recognised ethnic minority. As such, they are entitled to claim statutory protection from discrimination.”
Two fields at Woodside park had been divided up into 27 plots as long ago as 1998. Smith and his family share a field with Irish traveller Frances Doherty and gypsies Abraham Howard and Billy Price, together with their families.
In 2001, the group applied for planning consent to change the use of the land from agricultural to that of a gypsy caravan site. Mid-Bedfordshire Council and the inspector both refused consent, and, in 2004, the group brought legal proceedings.
Although the High Court dismissed Smith’s appeal in October of that year, he is now petitioning the Court of Appeal for permission to continue his challenge.
Smith argues that the inspector had “erred in law” by taking account of the fact that the group had unlawfully occupied the site before seeking planning consent and that the site is close to several authorised gypsy sites, risking undue competition for local work and potential conflicts between gypsy communities.
The Court of Appeal has reserved its decision, and is expected to give a written judgment within the next few weeks.
Smith v First Secretary of State and another Court of Appeal (Buxton Sedley LJJ and Rimer J) 22 June 2005.
Marc Willers (instructed by South West Law, of Bristol) appeared for the appellant; Andrew Sharland (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) appeared for the first respondent, the First Secretary of State; Eian Caws (instructed by the legal department for Mid-Bedfordshire District Council) appeared for the second respondents.
References: EGi Legal News 23/06/2005
