Gypsies and Travellers in £97 million housing plan

The government is set to announce a new scheme aimed at addressing the housing crisis among the Gypsies and Traveller communities. Grants totalling £97 million, to be allocated during the next three years, are aimed to create homes for up to 25,000 people. About a third of the money is expected to go to the East of England where around a quarter of the country’s travelling families live but where there are only 16 per cent of the official sites. People on the sites will pay rent and council tax and in return the local authorities will provide rubbish collection, running water, electricity and other services. Communities and Local Government said that a ‘good supply of authorised sites can break the vicious circle of evictions that is costly in terms of both taxpayers’ money and the quality of life for Gypsies, Travellers and the settled communities’.