Leeds GATE, a charity which supports Gypsy and traveller communities, did not send a representative to the meeting, but they have previously called for more sites to be allocated to caravans.
“I think people feel like they are stuck between a rock and a hard place because they do not have anywhere to go,” says the organisation’s CEO, Ellie Rogers.
Rogers says she spoke to a young mother staying on an encampment in Roundhay Park who “didn’t want to be there”.
“She wanted a home but there wasn’t anything available to her.
“There was a long waiting list and there aren’t plots available. There’s a housing crisis for everybody but for Gypsies and travellers it’s much more stark.”
Self says his council colleagues are “looking at” provision, but warns more sites would not stop traveller encampments altogether.
Some groups are more co-operative than others, he tells the room, with the vast majority evicted by court orders.
Locals have criticised the council’s latest proposed measures to prevent traveller encampments at Roundhay Park – which include installing more entrance boulders and 909 linear metres of “earth mounding”, funded by parking charges – as a “sticking plaster”.
“What have you been doing for 10 years, why isn’t there a place for them to go to?” one man asks.
“Sort the roof out, stop plugging the holes all the time.”
“Until something happens at the top, we are not going to solve this problem by putting plants in and boulders,” says another.
Criticism of the authorities’ respective responses, or lack of, continues, with one resident, Neil Sevitt, telling the meeting: “We are frightened to go out of our homes.”
