PLANNING AND INJUNCTIONS
The planning and legal framework governing Gypsy and Traveller communities is built upon a profound and enduring contradiction. The state systematically fails to provide adequate, culturally appropriate accommodation while simultaneously criminalising the unauthorised encampments that result from this very failure. National planning policy explicitly requires local authorities to assess need and identify a five-year supply of deliverable pitches. Yet, widespread political resistance and a critical national shortage of transit sites have created a vacuum of lawful stopping places. This design flaw directly fuels a cycle of enforcement, where the law penalises a nomadic way of life it has made impossible to practise.
The primary tools of this enforcement are injunctions and criminal law.
2015
The modern era of widespread injunctions began when Harlow District Council, with Essex County Council, obtained the first borough-wide injunction against "persons unknown." This order, prohibiting unauthorised encampment across the entire borough, was seen as a blueprint and sparked a wave of similar "wide" injunctions by local authorities across the country.
2020
This trend was successfully challenged in the landmark 2020 Court of Appeal case. Barristers, including Marc Willers QC, argued that such blanket bans violated human rights and the Equality Act, denying the "enshrined freedom" to pursue a nomadic way of life. The court ruled injunctions must be a last resort, crucially highlighting a council's "lack of availability of alternative sites" as a critical failing.
2022
A more severe escalation came with the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act. This legislation criminalised "trespass with intent to reside," granting police powers to seize homes (vehicles), impose unlimited fines, and ban families from an area for up to twelve months. This criminalisation occurred despite police opposition and in the glaring absence of transit site provision. In a significant ruling in May 2024, the High Court declared this twelve-month ban power discriminatory and incompatible with human rights law, creating substantial pressure for Parliament to repeal it.
This systemic crisis is obscured by a major data failure. Official census figures are a significant undercount due to historic and ongoing mistrust and discrimination, meaning the true population is much higher than statistics suggest. It is estimated that over 82% of Gypsies and Travellers now live in bricks-and-mortar housing. This is not primarily a lifestyle choice but a direct consequence of the acute shortage of legal, safe stopping places. Enforcement actions, therefore, target a small, visible minority on the roadside, while the larger, housed population—forced into conventional housing by state failure—remains unseen. This makes the criminalisation of trespass fundamentally disproportionate.
The Supreme Court crystallised this contradiction in its 2023 ruling on injunctions. The court stated unequivocally that such orders have a "negative impact on the ability of Gypsies and Travellers to pursue a nomadic way of life" and can only be justified in "exceptional circumstances." It mandated that authorities must demonstrate a "compelling justification," explicitly considering their own lack of site provision—a legal standard most fail to meet, thereby revealing the system's inherent injustice.