Gypsy & Traveller Rights
At Garden Court Chambers we have an experienced and dedicated team of experts covering all aspects of the law relating to Gypsy and Traveller rights.
Chambers probably fields the largest team of barristers in the UK. Our team offers representation in all areas of the law relating to Gypsies and Travellers, including:
- planning inquiries following the refusal of planning permission or the service of enforcement notices,
- statutory appeals to the High Court under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990,
- enforcement of the provisions of the same Act in the Magistrates' and Crown Court,
- removal directions issued under the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994,
- possession proceedings,
- injunction and committal proceedings relating to the breach of planning control,
- judicial review of decisions relating to the enforcement of planning control and the eviction of Gypsies and Travellers from land by other means,
- the provision of health and education and other services to members of the Gypsy and Traveller community, and
- discrimination.
Members of the team regularly speak at conferences on Law Reform and provide training on the various aspects of the subject in both the United Kingdom and Europe. Three of our members are co-authors of the main textbook on the subject, Gypsy and Traveller Law (LAG 2007 - 2nd edition).
Our barristers have appeared in many of the leading cases in this area, including:
R v Lincolnshire CC ex parte Atkinson (1995) 8 Admin LR 529. A case concerning the need for local authorities to take account of considerations of common humanity and to carry out welfare enquiries before deciding whether to evict Gypsies and Travellers from their land.
Coster v United Kingdom [2001] 33 EHRR 20. One of four Gypsy cases that were heard together with the lead case of Chapman v UK. The ECtHR decided that planning enforcement action did not breach the human rights of the Gypsy families concerned, but that the State had a positive obligation to facilitate the Gypsy way of life.
Clarke v SSETR [2002] JPL 552. In this case the CA held that when a Gypsy sought planning permission for a caravan site and had a cultural aversion to bricks and mortar, it could breach his human rights to take account of an offer of conventional housing that had been made to him.
South Bucks DC v Porter (No.1) [2003] 2 AC 558. It was decided by the HL that a court determining an application for an injunction to stop Gypsies and Travellers living in caravans on their land, without planning permission, should take account of a variety of considerations, including the personal circumstances and human rights of the defendants.
R (Margaret Price) v Carmarthenshire CC [2003] EWHC 42 Admin. The court quashed a decision to evict an Irish Traveller from her land. She had made a homelessness application and the council had failed to consider whether she had a cultural aversion to bricks and mortar and, if so, whether there was any other suitable accommodation.
South Bucks DC v Porter (No.2)[2004] 1 WLR 1953. This is the second HL case concerning the Porter family. Their Lordships upheld the decision to grant the family planning permission and gave guidance to planning inspectors on the extent to which they needed to give reasons for their decisions.
First Secretary of State, Grant Doe and Others v Chichester DC [2004] EWCA Civ 1248. A case in which the CA upheld a planning inspector's decision to grant Gypsies planning permission and his conclusion that to refuse them permission would breach their human rights.
Codona v Mid-Bedfordshire DC [2005] HLR 1. A homelessness case where the CA upheld the offer of bricks and mortar accommodation as temporary housing to a Gypsy when there were no sites available.
Smith v First Secretary of State and Mid Beds DC [2006] JPL 386. A case where the CA quashed a planning inspector's decision to refuse a Gypsy family planning permission because he had wrongly taken into account the local residents' 'fear of crime' when there was no evidential basis for the existence of such a fear.
Leeds City Council v Price [2006] UKHL 10. The HL concluded that the eviction of Gypsies and Travellers from public land did not breach their human rights. It held that in a case where there was an inconsistency between a judgment of the HL and a judgment of the ECtHR, domestic courts were bound to follow the HL decision.
R (Lisa Smith) v London Development Agency and SSTI [2007] EWHC 1013 (Admin). A statutory challenge to the Compulsory Purchase Order of land used as a Gypsy site for the purposes of the Olympics. The challenge was dismissed.
R (McCarthy and Others) v Basildon DC and the Equality and Human Rights Commission [2008] EWHC 987. A judicial review challenge to a decision to take direct action to evict a large encampment of Irish Travellers. The decision was quashed.
The team
Members of the Gypsy & Traveller Rights team are listed below - click on their names to go to their profiles.
