Planning inspector allows appeal over council refusal for traveller site on disused car park

The decision comes almost a month after a County Court judge dismissed a possession claim, scuppering Medway's efforts to evict the families from the site.

The families had moved on to the car park, which had fallen into disuse after the pandemic in July 2023, at the suggestion of a local councillor.

They were issued with a Notice to Quit by the council in October 2023 but refused to comply and have remained on site in Rainham, Kent, ever since.

His Honour Judge Parker dismissed the council's ensuing possession claim in May this year, finding that the move represented a "disproportionate interference" with their rights under article 8.2 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

He also concluded that the council had breached the Children Act 2004 in deciding to pursue the possession order.

Prior to the legal action, the families had applied for a change of use of the land that would allow them to stay on the site.

The council refused permission, citing the potential impact of the proposal on the Thames Estuary and Marshes and the Medway Estuary and Marshes Special Protection Areas (SPAs) and the effect of the change of use on the character and appearance of the area.

It also raised questions over whether the site provided reasonable living conditions for the occupiers in terms of the noise environment.

In considering the families' appeal of the refusal, Planning Inspector Paul Griffiths said he was content that the change of use accorded with the local authority's development plan, adding that he "saw no good reason" not to make the grant of permission for a permanent Gypsies and/or Travellers site at the car park.

He also said that the interests of the children living on the site and attending nearby schools would justify the change of use. 

On this point, the inspector said that the family were "happily settled, and having a base, albeit an insecure one," has allowed the children of school age living on the site to attend schools and school places to be found for those coming up to school age.

He added: "It is well established that in cases such as this, there is no more important single consideration than the best interests of the children involved. It is abundantly clear that these best interests are most effectively served by a settled base that allows for attendance at school."

Griffiths said that even if he found some harm to the area's character and appearance that resulted in a failure to accord with the development plan, "the obvious advantages of a settled base, in the light of the best interests of the children, the PSED and the occupiers' Article 8 Human Rights, would have provided material considerations sufficiently weighty to justify a decision not in accord with the development plan in this case, without the tilted balance in the Framework needing to be employed".

Adam Carey