The Garden Court Gypsy and Traveller Rights Team has supported The Road Ahead - a report for the Welsh Government in response to their Travelling to a Better Future (TTBF) report on Gypsy and Traveller policy.
The report, which is introduced by Welsh Assembly Member Julie Morgan, praises the Welsh Government's policy framework, for identifying the issues that contribute to the vulnerability and exclusion of Gypsies and Travellers and the key policy areas that must be addressed to combat that vulnerability and exclusion.
The report's authors go on to make three recommendations:
- That the Welsh Government uses its legislative competence to reintroduce the duty on local authorities to provide or to facilitate the provision of sites. This is the only way that the admitted failings by Welsh local authorities can be counteracted.
- That the Welsh Government has reference to the extremely extensive consultation on the MHA 1983 carried out by the Department of Communities and Local Government in England and does not delay any further in introducing the MHA 1983 on local authority sites.
- That when implementing the MHA 1983 on local authority Gypsy and Traveller sites the Welsh Government keeps disputes which arise within the jurisdiction of the county court rather than effecting a transfer to Residential Property Tribunals.
Click here to download The Road Ahead: A response to 'Travelling to a Better Future'.
The report was drafted by Community Law Partnership, with legal advice and contributions from the Garden Court Gypsy and Traveller Rights Team.
