News & events

Members of the Gypsy and Traveller community joined staff and trustees online for the LGT Annual General Meeting last week, to hear about a unique year for the organisation and the community in London. Presentations at the Zoom event, also streamed live on Facebook, described how COVID-19 had affected Gypsies and Travellers, and how LGT …

On Thursday 17th December 2020, a major case management hearing will take place ahead of an upcoming High Court case on anti-Traveller wide injunctions, due to be held in January 2021. Since 2015, councils have increasingly used injunctions to prevent Gypsies and Travellers from stopping on council-owned land. The majority of people who pull up …

A court hearing on 10th and 11th December could determine that the government’s planning definition of Gypsies and Travellers is unlawful. The current planning definition, adopted in 2015, means that Gypsies and Travellers who have permanently stopped travelling in a caravan for work do not have their accommodation needs counted and struggle to get planning …

‘Roadside Futures’ project to improve lives of roadside Gypsies and Travellers across the UK, thanks to National Lottery funding Today, £2million in National Lottery funding has been awarded to ‘Roadside Futures’ which is a project that aims to improve the quality of life for nomadic Gypsies and Travellers and the communities in which they live …

All councils that have taken out “wide injunctions” preventing Gypsies and Travellers from camping on open land may have to withdraw them if a new High Court hearing – due in the New Year – goes against them. This new hearing, centering around Enfield Council, follows a landmark legal ruling in early 2020 saying that …

In the wake of the successful Court of Appeal challenge to London councils’ “wide injunctions” preventing camping on open land, London Gypsies and Travellers’ work continues to bring individual councils round to a more humane approach. Ilinca Diaconescu, LGT’s Policy and Campaigns Coordinator, provides an update on important developments in Enfield. At a High Court …

Organisations for Gypsies and Travellers, including LGT, are demanding an apology from Home Secretary Priti Patel after she branded Travellers as criminal and violent in a recent Zoom meeting with Jewish community leaders. During the meeting, Ms Patel said she was determined to stamp out the “criminality that takes place and that has happened through …

London Gypsies and Travellers has relaunched its Bright Futures programme, which supports children and parents as they make the transition from primary school to secondary school or from school to college. Bright Futures now has its own logo, and LGT is promoting the programme widely. As part of the service, LGT’s youth development worker can …

Gypsy, Roma and Traveller History Month celebrations took a new format this year, with London Gypsies and Travellers, the Greater London Authority and other organisations staging a spectacular online event showcasing the community’s contribution and culture, but suited to COVID times. Debbie Weekes-Bernard, London’s Deputy Mayor for Social Integration, attended the event and spoke about …

In a short film made by LGT, Gypsies and Travellers are sharing their responses to Channel 4 Dispatches programme The Truth about Traveller Crime. Since the programme was aired on 16th April, LGT has been gathering reactions from Gypsies and Travellers in London and beyond to feed into its formal complaints to Channel 4 and …