Traveller site planning applications: policy, need and evidence

A traveller site planning application turns on three things the council will test before it looks at the drawings: whether the occupiers meet the planning definition in Planning Policy for Traveller Sites, whether there is unmet need in the district, and whether the site itself passes the criteria in the adopted local plan. Get those three right and the layout questions are manageable. Get the first one wrong and the application is assessed as ordinary residential caravan development in a location that almost never supports it.

The planning definition and why status matters

Annex 1 to Planning Policy for Traveller Sites sets out the definition used for planning purposes. It turns on a nomadic habit of life, and it is narrower than the ethnic definitions used in equalities law. Someone can be a Romani Gypsy or an Irish Traveller for the purposes of the Equality Act 2010 and still fall outside the planning definition, which changes which policies apply to their application.

The Court of Appeal in Smith held that excluding those who had permanently ceased to travel, often through age or disability, was unlawfully discriminatory. Read the current version of the policy before you draft, and where your client has stopped travelling for health reasons, set that history out plainly with dates, fairs and work patterns rather than leaving the officer to guess.

Where the definition is not met, the application does not fail automatically. It is assessed against general housing and countryside policy instead, and the case then rests on personal circumstances and the development plan.

Establishing need

Councils assess need through a gypsy and traveller accommodation assessment, which sits behind the pitch target in the local plan. The duty to assess the accommodation needs of people residing in or resorting to the district with respect to caravan sites and houseboats comes from the Housing Act 1985 as amended by the Housing and Planning Act 2016.

Read the assessment before you write a word of the statement. Three questions matter. What pitch requirement did it identify, over what period? How many of those pitches have been delivered since the base date? And did the study count only households meeting the planning definition, or did it also record an undetermined group whose status was not established?

That last figure is where most arguments start. A council with a nominally met target may have an undetermined cohort larger than its whole five-year requirement, and the appeal evidence on that point is often stronger than anything in the adopted plan.

Site selection against local criteria

Most local plans carry a criteria-based policy for traveller sites covering access to a public highway, safe pedestrian routes to services, the availability of water, foul drainage and power, landscape and visual effects, the relationship with settled communities, and whether the site can accommodate the proposed pitch numbers without cramming.

Work through those criteria as headed sections in the Planning Statement rather than writing a narrative. Officers write committee reports against the criteria, and a statement that mirrors them is far harder to summarise unfairly. Where the site fails one criterion, say so and explain what the mitigation is. Silence on a weak point reads as evasion.

Pitches, amenity blocks and layout

A pitch is not a plot of grass. A conventional pitch holds a mobile home, a touring caravan, parking for two vehicles, an amenity block with a kitchen, bathroom and utility space, and room for a drying area. Hardstanding, turning space for the largest vehicle likely to use it, and a fire separation distance between units all need showing on the layout drawing, not described in the text.

Councils apply different local standards, so ask for theirs at pre-application stage. The recurring problems are pitches that cannot take a family-sized mobile home once the amenity block is placed, turning areas drawn for a car rather than a tow vehicle and caravan, and bin stores that appear nowhere. A short Design and Access Statement carries this material well, with a dimensioned typical pitch as the central drawing.

Access, drainage and flood risk

Flood risk deserves its own paragraph in any traveller site case, because caravans, mobile homes and park homes intended for permanent residential use are classed as highly vulnerable development in the national flood risk vulnerability classification. Highly vulnerable development is not permitted in Flood Zone 3, and in Flood Zone 2 it needs the exception test.

That single classification rules out a great many otherwise sensible sites. Check the Flood Map for Planning before you spend anything on drawings, and if the site is in Zone 2, plan for a Flood Risk Assessment and a Sequential Test that looks honestly at alternative sites, including any allocated in the plan.

Foul drainage is the next practical issue. Package treatment plants need a discharge permit or an exemption, and the details matter to the highway and environment consultees who will comment. Visibility splays at the access, surfacing of the first stretch of the drive and gate set-back distances are the usual highway conditions, and they are far cheaper to design in than to retrofit.

Temporary and personal permissions

Where need is unmet and no five-year supply of deliverable sites exists, national policy treats that as a material consideration in favour of granting temporary permission. Temporary and personal consents are common outcomes in this field, and they are worth asking for in the alternative rather than treating a refusal of permanent permission as the end.

A personal permission ties occupation to named individuals and their dependants, and it falls away when they leave. Councils sometimes prefer it because it limits the precedent. Be clear with clients that it also limits the value of the site and makes finance harder, and that a fresh application will be needed if the family composition changes.

Illustrative example: a family of two households applies for three pitches on a field outside a village, with the site in Flood Zone 1 and a criteria-based policy in the adopted plan. The council accepts the planning definition is met, finds the site acceptable on access and landscape, but has an adopted pitch target it says is met. The case then runs on the undetermined households in the accommodation assessment and on the schooling and medical needs of two children, and a three-year temporary permission is granted.

Green Belt and very special circumstances

Traveller sites in the Green Belt are inappropriate development, and inappropriate development is by definition harmful. Permission requires very special circumstances that clearly outweigh that harm together with any other harm.

The factors that carry weight in these cases are familiar: unmet need with no alternative site available, the absence of a five-year supply, the personal circumstances of the occupiers, the best interests of any children as a primary consideration, and health needs that make a settled base necessary. None of them works as an assertion. Each needs evidence, whether that is a school letter, a consultant's letter about a treatment programme, or a schedule of sites investigated and rejected with reasons.

The harm side needs the same discipline. Say how much openness is lost, over what area, and what screening and boundary treatment will do over five years. An honest account of harm makes the balancing exercise credible.

What to submit

Beyond the forms, plans and fee, a workable bundle is the planning statement with the criteria assessment and the need case, a design and access statement with a dimensioned pitch layout, a highway access drawing with visibility splays, a foul and surface water drainage strategy, a flood risk assessment where the site is in Zone 2 or 3, an ecology appraisal where the land has been undisturbed, and the personal evidence pack. Keep the personal evidence in a clearly marked annex so it can be redacted for publication.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. Check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it.

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