Howard promises crackdown on illegal traveller camps
Conservative leader Michael Howard has promised a raft of new measures to stop illegal traveller camps, if the Conservatives win the general election.
Mr Howard said in adverts in several Sunday papers that some travellers were using the Human Rights Act to avoid planning regulations, adding:
“It’s not fair that there’s one rule for travellers and another for everyone else.”
The Conservative leader has said he will outline a five-point action plan on Monday, which includes a review of the Human Rights Act, new powers for councils to remove illegal caravans and the option of larger court fines and revised guidance to police on traveller trespass and criminal or anti-social behaviour on traveller sites.
In his advertisement Mr Howard says: “If you want to build a new home you have to get planning permission first.
“But if you are a traveller you can bend planning law – building where you like thanks to the Human Rights Act.”
He will insist in his speech on Monday that people should be at liberty to live their lives in different ways, but freedom comes with responsibilities to the wider community. Mr Howard will point out that the “vast majority” of travellers accept that, while a “small minority” are wilfully abusing the planning system.
Labour’s general election co-ordinator Alan Milburn accused the Tory leader of exploiting issues rather than dealing with them, adding: “He is determined to try and get away from the fundamental questions of the economy, public services, and the £35 billion of cuts the Tories are proposing, because he knows he is weak on these issues.
“Michael Howard has no vision for the future, and would take Britain back, not forward.”
