A council and its councillors can benefit from changing their approach to gypsy and traveller families, says a representative of those communities.

Calderdale Council has had issues recently with travelling families making unauthorised incursions onto council land, including at Shelf, with legal and clean-up costs resulting.

But a different approach can improve relations all round, chief Executive of Leeds-based Gypsy and Traveller Exchange (GATE), Ellie Rogers, told councillors.

She said more than 800 gypsies and travellers, from different ethnic minorities, who lived across West Yorkshire were registered with GATE, which helps them with services including advocacy, mental health support work and more.

A lot of issues arose through many travelling families’ first contact in an area being enforcement or, if a site planning permission was sought, local communities, often supported by elected members, leading campaigns against them, said Ms Rogers.

This meant there was a history of gypsies and travellers not seeing local authorities as being for them.

Councillors could help being more educated about gypsies and travellers to understand why they wanted a place for their homes and work with them on planning applications.

“Often it’s fear rather than any actual unrest that people are worrying about, people have a lot of negative perceptions about gypsies and travellers,” she said.

Solutions could include negotiated stopping sites, she told councillors – this had actually gone on for centuries in arrangement with landowners, for seasonal work and so on.

In Leeds the group worked with people, including the council, a different way to a primary enforcement approach, with some success, said Ms Rogers.

Ms Rogers said it was not true people’s lives would be disrupted and often travelling families were blamed for rubbish dumped soon after in places they had cleaned up before leaving – she had witnessed this.

Some were on permanent sites, some in houses, others owned their caravans, moving among unauthorised encampments.

Other families had “yards” where their caravans could be parked although there were no authorised yards in Calderdale, said Ms Rogers.

She spoke as part of a wide ranging debate session about gypsies and travellers by Calderdale Council’s Place Scrutiny Board.