Pickles discriminated against Romany gypsies, court rules

Communities Secretary Eric Pickles has unlawfully discriminated against Romany gypsies wanting pitches in the green belt, the High Court has ruled.

In a ruling likely to affect many other travellers, a judge said both human rights and equality laws were breached by Mr Pickles and his department "calling in" cases that would normally be considered by his planning inspectors.

Mr Justice Gilbart, sitting in London, said Mr Pickles' department had "coined and developed" a practice in 2013-2014 of calling in all, and then a majority, of Green Belt traveller cases - most involving Romany gypsies or Irish travellers - "which discriminated unlawfully against a racial group".

His test-case ruling was a victory for two Romany gypsies - Charmaine Moore, a single mother with three children who is under threat of eviction from a site at North Cudham in the London borough of Bromley, and Sarah Coates, a disabled woman also with three children fighting to live temporarily on Green Belt land at Sutton-at-Hone near Dartford, Kent.