Travellers make up a small minority community. Surely in this day and age the majority can accommodate them?

People just want the police to move them on. Do they ever think where to?

Sadly, they don't care. It also still seems acceptable to make racist statements about travellers despite the Race Relations Act.

Even people in public office do this and they should know better. The only way to stop the tension between the settled community and travellers is to provide sites.

In Brighton and Hove we have a strategy whereby travellers can stop for a short time on "unauthorised" sites but 30 days is often not long enough for people with business in the city, health needs or who have children in school.

We have one site at Horsdean occupied by New Age Travellers. As the groups have very different lifestyles, we need places for Gypsy and Irish Travellers to stop and rest up for reasonable amounts of time - places where they feel safe and where they are not harassed.

I believe there are moral reasons to provide for everyone but from a practical point of view it would also be much cheaper than the cost of the endless merry-go-round of evictions.

-Councillor Juliet McCaffery, Brighton