John Wilson

Question: Novas are the only registered social landlord (RSL) that owns, manages and provides support for Gypsy and Traveller sites across the UK and Northern Ireland. How many individuals do you work and how many sites do you currently manage?

John Wilson: We currently manage nine caravan sites and work on two group housing sites over in Northern Ireland. There are about 120 pitches and 13 houses on the sites and we estimate that there are between 550 to 650 people at any one time living on those sites.

Question: Novas are publishing a national policy charter on Monday October 11. What will that charter say?

John Wilson: There are about 13 points on the charter. The charter lays out the ethos of the way we work including the fact that we are committed to working with Gypsies and Traveller communities as part of our equality strategies.

It also talks about where the sites that we currently manage are located and the fact that we are campaigning for further provision for Gypsies and Travellers through regional housing strategies and so forth.

We welcome the introduction of the site refurbishment grant in 2000 and 2002 but regret that it was only available to local authorities.

People like ourselves as an RSL who own sites cannot access the grant because we are not a local authority. Most of the local authority sites are now long term residential sites because there is a shortage of sites around the country and we would like to be able to see people like ourselves, RSL's, and other groups such as groups of Travellers be able to revive their own land, provide their own sites and obviously have funding to do this.

We would like to see a national standard set up for the provision of amenities on Gypsy and Travellers sites – there are no proper standards around the country - people interpret the rules as they go along.

We would also like to see more stopping places for nomadic groups of Travellers; it is frustrating at the moment that all of the old traditional stopping places have disappeared and it is the police that now deal with nomadic Travellers as criminals rather than providing accommodation for them and treat them as people that need accommodation and unfortunately we get a build up of tension between the police and the Travellers.

Question: Where should extra funding come from?

John Wilson: We are not committed to the funding for new Traveller sites coming through the Housing Corporation; although we are a member of the Housing Corporation we see it more as a main stream accommodation provider.

At the moment the Housing Corporation doesn’t collate the statistics on Traveller and Gypsy issues so when we do our returns for the Housing Corporation we don’t count.

We think that funding should be made available through the ODPM under the ownership of the Traveller taskforce. At the moment all of the Traveller/Gypsy issues are done through the ODPM and they are the group that have the statistics, they have the expertise surrounding accommodation issues and hence that is where we would like to see funding coming from in the future.

Question: Why have you called for a Traveller taskforce? What do you want to see it do?

John Wilson: We would like to see a taskforce co-ordinate all the work around Gypsy and Traveller issues, we would like a task group made up of Gypsy and Travellers and people like ourselves that are working so that issues can be discussed sensibly and we can look first and foremost at the accommodation issue.

A health report (sponsored by the Department of Health) that came out on Friday October 1, found that you need accommodation because without accommodation people don’t have access to proper health and education so we would like to see a task force actually look at what accommodation there is at the moment, where it is dotted around, which local authorities have provided it which haven’t and things like this.

Question: What challenges have you faced on sites and what challenges lie ahead?

John Wilson: We own two sites and we manage seven others for local authorities plus two housing schemes. We have had to deal with where these sites are being placed, the original layouts of the sites, then of course if there has been bad management over the years where people have moved themselves around - so often we will go onto a site and there will be little family groups in little areas and then there maybe some issues around how they all get on with each other.

If you had a clean sweep and were to start again then you may be able to manage the situation if you could also build a new site and a new location you could get on top of some of the issues that not only the travellers have but also being able to please some of the issues the local communities have about the image of the site.

Question: How important is providing quality and appropriate accommodation in helping Gypsies and Travellers realise their ambitions and tackling discrimination?

John Wilson: The whole issue around accommodation is the fact that it gives access to education, healthcare and so forth. Over the years sites have been placed next to motorways, sewage works on top of rubbish dumps and things like that miles away from where you would provide housing.

For instance there is certainly a site in East London which has got an electricity pylon right in the middle of the site and we are trying to campaign to say why should people have to live like this especially when health research has been done about the fact that people living near electricity, motorways and sewage suffer from asthma and all sorts of other related illnesses.

If you are not providing quality in appropriate places for people to live then they start way down at the bottom of the rung they don’t even get on the playing fields some of them and so that is the sort of issues that we want to try and improve.

Question: A Department of Health funded study released on October 1 stated that Gypsies and Travellers' health needs are not adequately met. Do you agree?

John Wilson: Yes I would certainly agree with that. It has been interesting that the study, the Health Status of Gypsies and Travellers in England, was done through the University of Sheffield.

I have personally been working with Gypsies and Travellers now for 17 or 18 years and there has been a lot of hearsay evidence from people all round the country that would say that the average life span of a Traveller man is at least 10 or 12 years less than a man from a settled community but this is the first time anyone has actually gone out and talked to Travellers and got the facts from the Travellers themselves.

It has put onto paper what a lot of us have been saying for a long long time.

Question: What are the key needs of Travellers and Gypsies?

John Wilson: Travellers need to be listened to and brought in with the norm of everybody else, whether they are English Romany Gypsies or they are Irish Travellers they are almost a forgotten ethnic minority.

They need to be brought into line in all sorts of things like the census forms, statistics, regional housing developments and things like this.

Instead of what has been happening over the last 20 years or so where there has been a report about housing needs and accommodation needs or educational needs and then the campaigners for the Gypsies and Travellers shout what about the Gypsies and Travellers and they get added on the end. They need to be recognised much more in the main stream.

Question: Do you think Travellers get a fair representation in the media?

John Wilson: No, unfortunately what happens is every time you get the word Gypsy it normally starts off with "filthy Gypsies" or "dirty Gypsies".

Because they are a mobile group of people on the whole, even those on official sites, people think that they are a strange group people that want to live in caravans and they just associate caravan sites with dirt, rubbish and groups of people going around in gangs and such.

So you get words like invasion, and rubbish associated with them. People don’t actually do many articles about how family orientated the Travellers are and the fact that you very rarely see an elderly Traveller person in old peoples homes and things like this – they want to look after each and go round with each other and the media cant understand that this is actually the norm for the Travellers so they are always branded with bad words.

Question: You recently spoke at a Conservative Party conference fringe event on tensions between the Traveller and settled community - what was your message?

John Wilson: Half the work we do is working with the settled community we go to residents associations, we go to council meetings and things to just try and slowly break down the aggravation that goes on with Gypsy and Travellers.

So we try and talk to local people and say Gypsy and Travellers are exactly the same as you they have their needs, they want their children to be able to go to school, they want their children to be able to go to the local doctors, they aren’t any different.

The problem is because they are on sites and camps people assume they are a totally different breed of people. There is no reason why people should see sites as no go areas, we want people to realise this and begin to break down the barriers that are visible at the moment.

Question: What is the Getting Results project about?

John Wilson: The Getting Results project is a project taking place in Liverpool, there was some funding from the CRE to provide cameras and photographic equipment on a site up there and people are doing a six month project where they are taking photos of their daily lives and they will received training around developing photographs and choosing the ones they want to use for an exhibition in Liverpool in the New Year and then hopefully move that exhibition further round the country as a permanent reminder of how people work and live in 2004 and 2005.