A traveller family living on Towers Lane Site want to stay and are applying for a temporary planning application

Feb 10 2011 by Rachel Flint, Chester Chronicle

TRAVELLERS on the Towers Lane site, Alvanley, want to stay in the community they consider their home.

A representative for the Travellers, Win Lawlor, of Irish Community Care Merseyside said that the group do not want to move because they are settled in Alvanley.

With their children attending local schools, and links with doctors, shops and churches, the family intend to apply for another temporary permission on March 4 and stay in Alvanley for another two years.

And if they are asked to leave the site, where they have lived undisturbed for five years, the family would be homeless, forced to live on the side of the road, and travel the country in search of a new home. “If the family choose to not go through with this process, there is no other alternative local authority site in the area.

“With the children's connections to schools and the family GP, other health care and local amenities, the family will be forced roadside into homelessness so not to disrupt their children's education.”

“There are no areas with too many sites, or vacancies on current sites. This family is requesting another permission.”

Win explained that the term Traveller does not mean a person who moves from-place-to-place, but refers to a cultural state, similar to being English, Somali, or Irish, with different rules, languages and histories.

She said: “This family have lived in and around the West Cheshire area for many years, they are all supporting each other and wish to live traditionally in a small extended family group, as is the norm within Traveller culture,” she said.

“The family has links with local schools, doctors, dentists, shops and churches, and so wished to live in Towers Lane, where they could access these things.”

Win explained that if the family have to move from the site, they could be met with hostility from other communities who misunderstand their way of life.

“Many times, when travelling, the community meets with stereotyping and judgements based merely on the basis that they are Travellers.”

“Most of the community simply want to bathe their children after they come home from school, put them in their night things and settle them to sleep in a place where they are not woken by a bailiff at 6am moving them to God knows where.

She added: “Even buying a piece of land and applying through the planning system is a huge act of hope and faith for this family.”