ITMB Media Monitor

The ITMB Media Monitor is designed to record stories and articles concerning the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller community in the British print media. It aims to keep you up to date with both the positive and negative stories at both the local and national level. The monitor can be used as a resource for all interested parties and organisations for research, press and media complaints and general interest purposes.

While the ITMB Monitor team strive to record all coverage of Travellers in the print media, we acknowledge that some stories will slip through our net. To help us keep a more detailed record feel free to send us any stories you feel are of interest and which we may have missed.

This is Total Essex 31/01/2012

A MOTHER of two says she is forced to have a gypsy site in a field next to her family home because of the council’s failings.

The site, off Lea Lane in Great Braxted, was granted permission for more caravans by the Planning Inspectorate last Monday

This is Total Essex 28/01/2012

ENFORCEMENT notices will be served on illegally camped Dale Farm travellers for the second time in four months – but only after electricity is restored to plots on the Crays Hill site.

The notices will be handed to travellers by next Tuesday as soon as Basildon Borough Council contractors finish re-laying power cables to three legal plots which were dug up during the October site clearance.

This is Wiltshire 21/01/2012

Wiltshire has been given £3.4 million to create and upgrade sites for gypsies and travellers.

The money awarded to Wiltshire Council by the Government is the largest grant allocation in the South West region.

Of the money, £1.15 million will be for 20 new pitches and £2.3 million is earmarked for improvements to 40 existing pitches.

Wiltshire Council will put £250,000 towards the scheme.

BBC News Surrey 20/01/2012

Hundreds of residents packed a public meeting called to raise concerns over a proposed site for gypsies and travellers in a Surrey village.

The former waste tip on green belt land at Shalford is one of three sites being considered for travellers by Guildford Borough Council.

Shalford councillor, James Palmer, said residents had a series of legitimate concerns about the choice of site

The Guardian 19/01/2012

There’s a scene in Gypsy Blood – True Stories (Channel 4) that is at first confusing. The camera is jumping around all over the place and it’s all very close range. There’s some brown fur in there somewhere, plus heavy breathing and a pathetic whimpering noise.

View Online 19/01/2012

HUNDREDS of people voiced their views when a consultation event was held into suggested Weymouth and Portland sites for gypsies and travellers.

 Two main sites dominated debate at Weymouth Pavilion Ocean Room, one at Mount Pleasant park and ride and the other on top of the old rubbish tip at Lodmoor.

Environment spokesman Councillor Ian Roebuck said the event was one of several being held across the county.

He added: “Weymouth and Portland is being encouraged to find transit sites for 25 gypsy and traveller families as part of Dorset’s requirement to find 111 permanent residential sites and 144 transit sites

News Post Leader 19/01/2012

NEW accommodation for Gypsies and Travellers is to be created in south east Northumberland through government funding.

Facilities will be provided through the investment by the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA).

The HCA has allocated £311,285 to Northumberland County Council for 11 new pitches.

The county says the location of these has not yet been decided and it will consult with parish councils and other organisations

Scarborough Today 19/01/2012

SEAMER Horse Fair came under discussion at a video conference meeting between Scarborough councillors and their counterparts in Horsmonden, Kent.

The link-up came about following a suggestion from a member of the public, who had heard about an annual horse fair in the village.

Cllr Helen Mallory, chairman of Seamer Parish Council, said the meeting at the Town Hall had gone very well.

Sollihull Observer 19/01/2012

PROTESTERS in Meriden have offered to withdraw their 625-day protest in March if the Courts take action to evict illegal travellers who have ‘devastated the Greenbelt.’

The campaigners have won planning and legal battles against the travellers and a trial date has been set for March 22 and 23 when a date could be set for the travellers to leave.

Meriden Residents Against Inappropriate Development (RAID) Chairman David McGrath said: “The planning committee of Solihull Council say we don’t have permission to stay at the protest camp and we accept.

The Guardian 18/01/2012

I read a book called King of the Gypsies, by a bare-knuckle fighter called Bartley Gorman, who fought in mineshafts, quarries and at horse fairs. Its world of masochism struck a chord with me. Men are taught to be fighters in the Gypsy community – so they can defend themselves at school, or from other boys on Traveller sites. It was a world I didn’t know existed, so I applied for a grant from the Getty photography agency to document it.

I had no contacts, no way in, so in 2007 I went along to a horse fair at Stow-in-the-Wold. Twice a year, Travellers descend on this Cotswolds town for an event protected by a King Henry I charter; the council can’t do anything about it. A preacher, a born-again Christian, took me to his church, where I met a reformed bare-knuckle fighter, and it all went from there. It was hard finding the right people and gaining their trust, though. I didn’t shoot anything for almost a year. But this picture of a fighter called Fred tells the story of a night that earned me a huge amount of respect within the Gypsy community.