Travellers need more help for better relations with community (From York Press)

Travellers need more help for better relations with community

10:50am Thursday 11th March 2010 in

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THE Press’s coverage of the “marginalised and excluded” report on the plight of travellers in York correctly points out that travellers in York face multiple problems in housing, access to health care and in education (Travellers feel “persecuted”, March 5).

It’s worth pointing out that the main focus of the report, and of York Travellers Trust, are the very many traveller families who have lived permanently and legally in York over generations.

It is the disadvantages these York residents still face which the York Travellers Trust has been set up to try and overcome. It also aims to improve relations between the travelling community, the general public and various authorities.

Traveller relations with other sections of the community, perhaps especially with the police, are often marked by high levels of mutual misunderstanding.

We provide advice, help people sort out problems and assist travellers in finding employment or training, for example. We liaise with the police and other bodies. But the trust is a tiny organisation, with only one full-time worker. We need substantially more help from statutory agencies like the police, local council and the health service if we are to continue our work and we hope, to avoid incidents like the one which you highlight in your report.

Some of this help needs to be financial, but greater liaison, and at an earlier stage, is also important.

It is our belief that the report demonstrates that the position of “York’s oldest and largest ethnic minority” needs a higher priority in the agenda of policy-makers, and we seek to play a positive part in enabling this process to occur.

Barbara Windle, Chair of York Travellers Trust, Falsgrave Crescent, York.