By Boris Worrall, Group Chief Executive, Rooftop Housing

Imagine a world where you regularly experience prejudice and discrimination. Where people blame you for things you haven’t done on social media. Where politicians and journalists criticise people like you.

Where evictions and being moved on by the police or council are a part of normal life. Where schools can’t, or don’t want to, provide education and support for your kids. Where people come to the place where you live to dump rubbish. Where people, where you live, don’t understand you, or even avoid contact.

This is the stark reality – sometimes daily and certainly very regularly for many – for thousands and thousands of Gypsy Romany Travellers in the UK today. As far as I can see, no other ethnic group or community in this country suffers the same level of casual, daily discrimination. The cost to the taxpayer of the lack of housing and consequential cycle of costly evictions runs to millions of pounds a year.

But it doesn’t have to be this way; and the housing sector can help. Let’s also just think about this for a moment – there’s a huge push on Equality Diversity and Inclusion in our sector right now, and strategies and action plans abound. Maybe we should also look outside of our organisations and think about whether we can also embrace EDI by helping real people in one of the most marginalised communities in this country.

Alongside Professor Jo Richardson, a housing expert and leading academic from De Montfort University, we set up the National Policy Advisory Panel on Gypsy and Traveller Housing to explore and address the issues around the lack of high-quality housing by engaging with Government, local councils, housing associations and other key stakeholders.

Huge progress has been made in the past five years, with Homes England funding available, a £10m Levelling Up fund to improve sites, and dozens of councils engaging with our group. Thanks to Friends Families and Travellers we also have three-year funding from the Oak Foundation to support our work.

And together, we have produced a short guide that explains how councils and housing association can help – which sets out the five ‘top tips’ for making this important form of housing work for the community and the wider neighbourhood.

1. Firstly, good site design with appropriate facilities are critical; and providers need to work with the community to understand what they want and need, rather than assume.
2. Strategic planning – is needed to ensure sites happen and are of the right scale and in the right location to thrive and succeed. This needs to be led by the local authority and informed by providers and the community. Bad sites are probably a worse outcome than no sites.
3. Providers need to build trust and a deep and long-term relationship with residents on sites with clear plans and policies in place. Managing a site requires a different approach in close partnership with residents.
4. Good site management is critical – repairs, maintenance and support for those who need it are best delivered through specific or modified mechanisms that recognise the specifics; simply dropping a ‘one size fits all’ approach onto sites is unlikely to be effective.
5. Finally, strong collaboration across the board – from customers to councils and everything in between – is vital to the long-term success of sites. Providers need to be in this for the long-run and working closely with others to ensure sites flourish and thrive.

Delivering sites is different to managing sites and each has its difficulties. But with the right approach, it can and should be done. The funding is there. And we are here to help. So, what are you waiting for?

You can get in touch via [email protected] for free advice and support.