Gypsies

We reported the Court of Appeal’s decision that gypsies were entitled to remain living in their mobile homes despite breach of the planning laws ( First Secretary of State and others v Chichester District Council, 23/ LL p104). The reaction of the Daily Mail (‘A free for all which will clear the way for scores of illegal camps across rural Britain.’) and the Shadow Environment Secretary (‘The Conservative Party cannot accept the situation where obscure bits of Human Rights legislation are allowed to approve development that damages the rural environment.’) were castigated by David Pannick QC in The Times of 19 October as a striking example of how misreporting can ‘go round the country while judges are still taking off their wigs’. An independent planning inspector had found that the land in Chichester was ‘close to few dwellings and largely hidden’; the site was not within the green belt, or otherwise specially protected as having conservation value. There would be minimal harm to the rural appearance of the countryside, which could, in any event, be largely mitigated by the planting of hedges. The council had done little to meet travellers’ needs. He concluded that, in the circumstances, the needs of the travellers took priority over the requirements of planning control. A High Court judge overturned him but the Court of Appeal restored the inspector’s decision while agreeing with the judge that travellers do not have a right to insist that their housing needs are met. All they have is a right to have those housing needs considered and balanced against the need for planning control. The Court of Appeal found that the inspector had correctly understood and applied this test. Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights required a balance in each case between the needs of the individual and the rights of the local community to environmental protection. The case decided no more, and no less, than that the inspector was entitled to find that the travellers’ needs outweighed the minimal environmental damage.