Gypsy, Traveller and Travelling Showpeople Development Plan Document

Strongly disagree

Strongly disagree. G&T state their culture dictates they need to live in a caravan. Caravans are self-sufficient in that they have kitchens, bathrooms, living rooms and bedrooms. Therefore, why are additional dayrooms and amenity blocks needed? These brick, unsightly, poor designed, permanent buildings (day rooms, amenity blocks) are huge, do not meet Kent Design Standards for the open countryside as dictated for the settled community. The dayrooms are as big as bungalows and are unnecessary. Why are they so large if the G&T are living in caravans? If dayrooms and amenity blocks are allowed, they need to be appropriately sized, not as large as the average one- or two-bedroom bungalow for the settled community. They need to meet Design Standards for the open countryside, meet full ecological standards, they need to be green energy efficient. They need to have lawful foul wastewater disposal with sufficient space and context to do meet legislation. Why are MBC proposing different build and design standards to those for the settled community?

Disagree

Slightly disagree. The issue is that regardless of what MBC agrees to monitor and review sites; they are rarely carried out. We already have a substantial array of policies and guidelines, but these are ignored, or cherry picked to as suits the situation. Complaints by the settled community, law breaking, intimidation and abuse is ignored, and this has created a huge amount of tension between the G&T and settled community. Enforcement is non-existent, and when it does happen it is too little, too late, as typically MBC eventually agrees the site. Sadly, this has led to a one law for G&Ts and one for the settled community.