Planning rule change strips away the grounds residents and councils used to fight unauthorised encampments.
Housing Secretary Angela Rayner has revised England’s national planning guidance in a way that critics say will make it harder for residents and councils to fight unauthorised traveller encampments, as part of a wider overhaul of planning policy unveiled on Monday.
Under the previous framework, councils weighing applications for retrospective permission could take into account the environmental harm caused by an unauthorised encampment, and were required to check that a site would offer a settled base that reduced the need for long-distance travelling. Rayner’s update strips out both of those tests, which opponents argue removes key grounds on which local objections could be raised.
Government officials seem to accept that the change will make it simpler to establish new sites, noting in supporting material that under the revised policy, locations without a strong link to existing settlements could still be judged acceptable. Ministers have said that more detailed guidance for planning inspectors on traveller-site applications will follow at a later date.
The reform comes against a backdrop of rising unauthorised encampments: government figures show the number of unauthorised traveller caravans in England has climbed 73 per cent since January 2020, from 2,860 to 4,950.
Shadow Housing Secretary Sir James Cleverly condemned the move, arguing that communities are being made to put up with rule-breaking by a small minority of travellers and that ministers are, in effect, making it easier for illegal sites to be set up and then legalised after the fact, sometimes once permanent structures are already in place. He also linked the change to Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s devolution agenda, accusing the Government of taking planning decisions out of the hands of local councils rather than local communities. Cleverly, whose Braintree constituency has previously seen an unauthorised caravan site built without permission, has repeatedly accused travellers of exploiting loopholes in the planning system.
He said that once the UK leaves the European Convention on Human Rights, a future Conservative government would take firmer action, closing what he called a two-tier system that gives travellers preferential treatment, and would back residents whom he says have been let down by Burnham.
That pledge follows a five-point plan the Conservatives set out over the weekend, built around Britain’s planned withdrawal from the ECHR. It includes giving police the power to bar travellers permanently from a site once they have been removed at a landowner’s request, and scrapping travellers’ ability to seek retrospective planning permission, so that anyone wanting to live on a plot of land in a caravan would need consent beforehand.
Wider Planning Shake-Up Targets Green Belt and Housing Targets
The traveller-site changes form part of a broader rewrite of the National Planning Policy Framework, which also eases the path for housebuilding on green belt land. New developments within a short walk of well-served railway stations, defined as roughly 800 metres or a ten-minute walk, will now receive a “default yes,” while pubs are set to gain stronger protection against conversion into homes or offices.
Rayner maintains the Government remains on course to deliver its manifesto pledge of 1.5 million new homes in England by 2029, despite housebuilding falling well short of pace. More than two years into Labour’s five-year term, roughly 392,400 net additional homes have been delivered, only a quarter or so of the total needed, and the department has begun describing the pledge internally as a “stretching target.” Asked whether she still expected to hit the goal, Rayner said simply that she did not like failure.
Rayner’s deputy, Matthew Pennycook, pointed to the war in Iran as a factor behind the slowdown, saying the conflict had dampened demand for new housing.
Reform UK has also criticised the changes, with deputy leader Richard Tice arguing they contradict Burnham’s promises on devolution by centralising decision-making in Whitehall at the expense of councils and residents, even as local infrastructure struggles to keep up.
A Labour spokesperson defended the reforms and argued that the Government has introduced strong safeguards for green belt development alongside tougher national policy on intentional unauthorised development.
