Council looking for 15 new sites for travellers

CURRENT PROVISION IS 'INADEQUATE'

- ALEXANDER BROCK

BIRMINGHAM City Council is looking to provide a pool of up to 15 temporary sites for caravan travellers after accepting its provision is inadequate.

A pilot programme could see “negotiated stopping” sites made available from this spring and will involve an unused piece of land being utilised as a temporary stopping place.

The proposals come amid the city council's issues with its transit sites, which are authorised areas where members of the travelling community can be directed to when in the city.

They typically provide hard standing for holding caravans, a secure boundary and basic sanitary provision while some also provide electricity.

But a report, published ahead of a cabinet meeting next week, said the council accepted the provision for the Gypsy, Roma Traveller (GRT) community had “not been adequate”.

It said the authority had two operational transit sites for travellers within the city.

But due to factors such as repeated vandalism and unauthorised encampments, they had not been “consistently operational” in recent years.

One site had been closed to new traveller groups for several years, it added.