§ Mr. Newensasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if it is his policy to provide temporary stopping places for gipsies and other travellers or to encourage local authorities to do so.
§ Mr. John SilkinI have no power to provide caravan sites. However, there is a need for many more gipsy sites of all kinds and I certainly encourage local authorities, when they are considering provision, to include both transit sites and temporary sites with limited facilities. Such sites can make an especially valuable contribution now, when there must be restraint on expenditure.
§ Mr. William Sheltonasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will give the costs or estimated costs for each Inner London borough of the provision in each borough of a gipsy site, as a result of his refusal to grant exemption or to designate the borough, as provided for in the Caravan Sites Act 1968.
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§ Mr. John SilkinWithin the five London boroughs, four of them—in Inner London—have been refused exemption. None of these has either provided a site or given the Department estimates of what it would cost to do so
§ Mr. William Sheltonasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will confirm that the cost of the development of a gipsy caravan site, as provided for in the Caravan Sites Act 1968, is judged by him to be one of the criteria of the suitability of available sites, should he be asked by a borough to grant exemption under the terms of the Act.
§ Mr. John SilkinIf a borough were to demonstrate that the only site or sites in its area, suitable in other respects for a gipsy site, would be inordinately expensive to develop, that would certainly be taken into account as relevant evidence in considering a case for exemption. But I still doubt whether within the strict terms of the 1968 Act it will ever prove possible for my right hon. Friend to grant exemption.
§ Mr. William Sheltonasked the Secretary of State for the Environment by what criteria he would assess whether the development of a site for 15 gipsy caravans, under the terms of the Caravan Sites Act 1968, was inordinately expensive or not.
§ Mr. John SilkinThere can be no hard and fast rule, but my right hon. Friend would obviously have regard to the cost of other sites recently provided or proposed.