The South-East England Regional Assembly (SEERA) are currently running a consultation aboutthe provision of new legal campingplaces for gypsies, travellers and travelling showpeople.  The consultation is open until November 21st.   Anybody can respond to the consultation either in a private capacity as a resident or in a representative capacity, if appropriate.  You don’t even have to hunt for a stamp because it can all be done online.

The gist of the consultation is that there is a proposal to provide an additional 1064 spaces across the whole region, which overs Kent, Sussex (East & West), Hampshire, Surrey, Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Bucks by 2016.  There are four options for meeting that target: one is to provide all new spaces as close as possible to where travellers currently live/stop, another is to provide all spaces in the general area where travellers currently live. The remaining options are to provide a percentage of new spaces in the general areas where travellers currently live and to spread the remainder (either 50% or 25%) across the region. There are similar targets and options for travelling show people.

The online questionnaire asks amongst other things, whether the overall target of 1064 for the region is the right number, which of the four options is best, and what to do about councils that do not provide information about current and recent encampments.

As they stand, the current proposals would mean either an additional 16, 20, 23 or 33 pitches in Crawley and either an additional 47, 51, 56 or 59 pitches in Horsham.  All four options give Mid Sussex an additional 21 pitches. What I did not see in the documentation was any indication at district level of how many pitches there are right now, but for the whole county there are about 65 unauthorised caravans and about 180 authorised pitches.

The press release about the consultation is here, and the full details are here – including links to several background documents and the online questionnaire.