A Brighton MP has raised the issue of travellers with the government in a parliamentary question.
Simon Kirby, the Conservative MP for Brighton Kemptown, put his question to the Communities and Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles.
Mr Kirby asked Mr Pickles “what assessment he has made of the progress of his department’s review of the law affecting travellers and if he will make a statement”.
He received a written reply from a member of Mr Pickles’s ministerial team, the Liberal Democrat MP and Junior Minister Andrew Stunnell.
Mr Stunnell said that the government was looking to tighten up planning and enforcement law to strengthen the position of councils.
He also promised to bring traveller sites within the same regulatory regime as mobile homes.
Mr Stunnell said: “We are working on proposals to strengthen the powers that local authorities have to enforce against breaches of planning control and limiting the opportunities for retrospective planning applications in relation to any form of unauthorised development.
“The government will bring into force section 318 of the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008 which includes local authority traveller sites in the Mobile Homes Act 1983.”
why are they asking the ministers ?