A group of travellers have won a landmark court case to stay at a park-and-ride site after a judge ruled a council was wrong to try and evict them.
Medway Council, in Kent, had tried to turf out the Romani Gypsy families who had set up home at the Wigmore Coach Park, off the M2.
A court heard earlier this year how the group of 15 adults and 14 children were moved to the location by the local authority in the summer of 2023.
They had been granted permission to stay at the site for three months if they paid a monthly fee and stuck to certain rules.
But in October, they were handed an eviction notice, with the council saying they planned to sell the land in the near future.
However, a judge has now ruled the authority had interfered with their human rights by trying to kick them out, after hearing no steps had been taken to sell the site.
This means the travellers can remain in place – though they do not have a permanent right to stay at the car park.
The court judgment – thought to be one of the first wins of its kind in the last decade – explained that circumstances ‘may shift the balance in favour of eviction’.
A group of travellers have won a landmark court case to stay at a park-and-ride site after a judge ruled a council was wrong to evict them. Pictured are some of the travellers
A court heard earlier this year how the group of 15 adults and 14 children were moved to the location by the local authority in the summer of 2023 (pictured is the traveller site)
The group of families have applied for planning permission to turn the park and ride – previously used by those commuting to London – into an official traveller site.
An initial planning application was submitted last May but was refused just two months later. An appeal against the refusal is due to take place on Wednesday.
Concerning the eviction, Canterbury County Court heard the travellers were moved to the site, which was a park-and-ride until the pandemic, by the council in July 2023.
They had originally pitched up at the nearby Laburnum Road Recreation Ground in Strood, and council officers discovered that some members were ‘heavily pregnant’ while others were suffering from ‘serious health conditions’.
They were granted permission to stay at Wigmore for three months, as long as they paid a weekly licence fee of £285 and stuck to certain rules.
But in the October of that year, the council issued them a notice to leave despite the group insisting they had kept to the stated rules.
When they didn’t move on, a possession order for the land was issued at the end of the year.
Medway Council claimed its reason for issuing the order was that it had planned to sell the land in the ‘near future’.
Pictured is an aerial shot of the former park-and-ride facility in Kent which the travellers have been fighting to remain on
Pictured is one of the families who are based at the former park-and-ride facility
But during the hearing at the county court it was revealed no steps had been taken to sell it.
The authority also accepted it had not set pitch targets which make ‘satisfactory provision’ for gypsy and traveller sites – of which there is a chronic national shortage.
It comes as some members of the group reported having had their names on waiting lists for as many as 10 different traveller sites over the last decade.
Tina Herring, who lives at the site, said: ‘I think that it’s down to the council and the government to supply permanent places for each and every one who needs them and to not just keep moving us around because they’re not going to solve the problem, are they?
‘They just push it on from one county to another, and no one wants to deal with you. It’s a vicious circle going round and round and round.’
On the council’s attempts to remove them, she added: ‘When we got the lease for this, [the condition] was to keep things tidy, which we do anyway. We don’t need to be told that.
‘”No anti-social behaviour” – we have no problems with the police. “No work, no fires, keep all these rules, and then we’ll probably give you a longer lease”. We’ve obeyed all the rules.’
A solicitor acting for some of the group described the court win as the first of its kind in a decade.
Medway Council, however, said it was deciding ‘how best to move forward’ – saying the decision was ‘disappointing’.
Cllr Louwella Prenter, Medway’s housing boss, said: ‘We are disappointed with the county court judgement not to grant possession of the former Wigmore commuter car park in Maidstone Road, back to Medway Council.
The council said it was ‘disappointed’ at the decision by the court to allow the group to remain at the site (pictured)
‘This is a lengthy and detailed decision, and we will give it due consideration before deciding how best to move forward.
‘Granting use of the site was only ever intended as a temporary three-month measure, and the car park is not deemed to be suitable as a long-term site for permanent occupation.’
Previous investigations have shown that many local authorities in Kent are still failing to meet the accommodation needs of the travelling community, despite it being a legal requirement.
After legislation was introduced allowing local authorities to evict, fine or arrest travellers setting up unauthorised encampments, they are often left being moved from roadside to roadside.
Marie Conde, another member of the group, likened living there with the looming threat of eviction to a state of ‘limbo’.
‘You could never plan to make a Sunday roast because you knew you’d get a move,’ she said. ‘You could never plan to take the kids out for a day because you couldn’t go and leave the place.’
Ms Herring added: ‘Everybody thinks this life is beautiful – it is, to an extent, but you can’t lie your head down at night.
‘You never know when that petrol bomb is going to be thrown at you. They’ve got to stand up and meet our needs instead of keep pushing us on.’
The group is now ‘praying’ the planning permission application is granted.
With no permanent place to stay, members of the group have no postcode and have no access to essential services such as healthcare and education.
‘We’re speaking for the children, the grandchildren and the great grandchildren and children to come,’ Ms Herring said.
‘They do need their schooling. They do need regular health checks from a doctor. Please, people, accept us – we’ve been here long enough.
‘When are you going to accept us, as human beings? I don’t want to hurt anybody by saying that, but we need to be accepted into society as equals.’
