Channel 4’s controversial documentary Dispatches: Truth About Traveller Crime has been hit with more than 800 Ofcom complaints, with thousands more expected to flood in from the traveller community. 

The 45-minute documentary hosted by Anja Popp focused on crime allegedly perpetrated by the community in the market town of Lutterworth, Leicestershire, which is home to 9,353 people, while exploring crimes linked to traveller sites across England. 

In the documentary, Anja goes in search of the truth about crimes linked to traveller sites. She talks to members of the public who have experienced crime waves and intimidation, goes out on patrol with police dealing with rural incidents and hears from travellers and their advocates, who say they suffer prejudice and attack. 

After the programme aired, national charity Friends, Families and Travellers, which works on behalf of all Gypsies, Roma and Travellers launched a complaint letter to Channel 4 and Ofcom, which already has over 7000 signatures.

The Church of England should make land available for gypsies and travellers, the General Synod has voted, despite concerns that they bring “a lot of upset and fear”.

Members overwhelmingly supported a motion calling on the Church to donate land from its notoriously large portfolio to the traveller community, just five months after Government ministers revealed they were considering making trespass a criminal offence to stop them moving onto private land.

Dozens of MPs including several former Cabinet ministers are demanding that the Government makes trespassing a criminal offence to stop travellers moving onto private land.

The MPs, led by Mark Francois and John Baron, have written to Theresa May and Housing Secretary James Brokenshire urging them to make “acts of deliberate trespass a criminal offence”.

They say that people “have a right to expect that the law should be applied equally and fairly to all and they want to see the authorities given additional powers to deal with unauthorised encampments, which are an increasing problem, particularly in the spring and summer months”.

The news has emerged days after a police force in Surrey failed to take action to remove a group of travellers who had set up camp illegally in a park in Thames Ditton.

The group were eventually evicted by the local council after three days, but left behind significant damage and mess, including “rutted” football pitches from drag racing cars, two dogs, and a water-logged cricket pitch, forcing this weekend’s games to be cancelled.

The council also hired a specialist cleaning company to carry out a “cleanse” of the park’s playground following their stay.

“Travellers faced with eviction from Dale Farm have asked for £6m to sell the site and leave quietly ahead of a scheduled visit from bailiffs later this month, the local council has said. Council officials and community leaders held a series of secret meetings over six months as the two parties tried to avoid the forced clearances from 19 September. The Travellers’ representative Richard Sheridan proposed the deal to take residents to Birmingham or Scotland in return for money for the Greenbelt land they own but live on illegally. However, Council Leader Tony Ball called the price “hugely above market value” and turned down the offer, saying: “It would have been unacceptable to enter any agreement where the Travellers effectively profited from breaking the law and this was a step too far.”

As a side but equally important issue, particularly in the context of the current debate over the new National Planning Framework – I have a feeling a no challenges agenda to greenbelt per se has not done the viability or sustainability of rural England as much good as some might like to think – I am sure you will have views!

Notwithstanding the pros and cons of this story I feel strongly we should do more work to understand and plan positively for our engagement with them. The article itself goes on to tell us

Traveller families at Dale farm have reaffirmed their intention to stay put at the start of a 28-day eviction period as it emerged that several homes will be spared from the mass removal.

The enforcement action will cost the local council in Crays Hill, Billericay, Essex, up to £8m. Eviction notices were issued in July but the 28-day countdown begins on Thursday.

The Travellers’ spokesman, Grattan Puxon, said three of the 54 plots would be saved but claimed there were few options left for families still residing illegally on the former scrapyard after plans to carry out the biggest eviction in British history were waved through at a meeting of Basildon council on Tuesday night.

“People are generally very desperate because this is a terrible threat which has been hanging over them for a number of years,” said Puxon. “Several of the residents are simply not well enough to go out on the road; it’s like a death sentence for them. People are certainly not leaving, though – they are determined to fight it out.”

Are there any good examples out there of stand offs of this nature being avoided by local authorities for the benefit of both the Council and the Travellers – or is there no way of squaring the circle of two radically different world views?