The High Court has ordered an inspector to reconsider a decision that a nomadic family that has settled on land in Basildon can retain its gypsy status.
Mrs Gail Doran and her extended family live in caravans on land to the west of the Sadlers Farm roundabout, in London Road, Bowers Gifford.
In April 2002, Basildon District Council issued two enforcement notices in relation to unauthorised developments on the site. An inspector subsequently quashed the notices, stating that, as gypsies, the family was entitled to take advantage of planning policies appropriate to gypsy caravan sites.
The High Court has now allowed the council’s challenge to that decision, and has held that, because the family has permanently ceased its travelling lifestyle, it cannot retain its gypsy status.
In the enforcement notices, the council claimed that the family had, without authorisation, removed topsoil, constructed a perimeter bunding and laid hardcore to form a hardstanding area for their caravans.
However, the inspector held that government advice, in the form of Circular 1/94, encouraged gypsies to provide their own private sites upon which they could permanently settle. He maintained that, despite giving up their nomadic lifestyle, Doran and her family had retained their status as gypsies because the decision had not been made voluntarily. Rather, it had been forced upon them by ill health.
He concluded: “In my opinion, it would be unreasonable and unjust to conclude that a person who is born a gypsy should cease to retain their gypsy status simply because ill health or infirmity restricted their ability to travel.”
Challenging that decision, the council claimed that the inspector had erred in his conclusion that the family constituted “gypsies” within the meaning of section 24 of the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960. They argued that the family’s personal history and its reasons for ceasing to travel were insufficient to support a conclusion that the family members remained “persons of nomadic habit of life”.
They added: “In so far as the inspector relied upon the proposition that ‘a person born a gypsy’ would retain ‘gypsy status’ when unable to travel, he erred in that an ability to travel is a fundamental characteristic of ‘a nomadic habit of life’.”
Agreeing, Judge Rich QC held that the inspector had erroneously interpreted section 24, and that gypsies could not retain their status as such after they had permanently ceased travelling, regardless of whether the decision to settle had been involuntary.
The case has been remitted to the First Secretary of State for reconsideration.
Basildon District Council v First Secretary of State and another Queens’ Bench Division: Administrative Court (Judge Rich QC) 20 April 2004.
References: EGi Legal News 21/04/04
