A call was made today for West Yorkshire councils to provide more accommodation for gipsies as illegal camps spring up across Bradford.

The latest settlement appeared on land owned by British Gas in Valley Road, opposite the Forster Square Retail Park, last Sunday following a spate of unauthorised camps in recent months. British Gas says it is taking steps to encourage the gipsies to leave and will consider its options if they don't.

Council officers give themselves a pat on the back for the way gipsies are dealt with in a report to the authority's public health and protection sub-committee which meets on Tuesday.

Officers say the gipsies regard them as "firm but fair". And they say the authorised gipsy sites at Esholt and Mary Street, Bradford, provide good quality rented accommodation for 47 families. They have been fully occupied for the last year and there is a waiting list of people wanting to move on.

But sub-committee member Councillor Martin Smith (Con, Ilkley), the Tory group housing spokesman, called for a tougher approach.

"We seem to have become in West Yorkshire a magnet for gipsies," he said. "We should be more resistive and encourage our adjoining authorities to provide more accommodation to ease the pressure on Bradford.''

Sub-committee chairman Coun Marilyn Beeley said the Council did not have the money to increase the number of permanent pitches for gipsies and she backed Coun Smith's call for other councils to do more.

"Mary Street and Esholt were paid for through a Government grant but the regulations under which they were funded, which required all local authorities to provide gipsy sites, were revoked by the previous Government," she said

But even if the money was available, they would have to carefully consider where further spaces could be accommodated, she said.

"Mary Street has no capacity for extension and while there might be some room at Esholt it is unlikely we would be granted planning permission to extend it.''

Of the other West Yorkshire councils, Leeds has a gipsy site with 52 pitches and Wakefield has a site with 38 pitches. Neither Kirklees nor Calderdale councils provides an official gipsy site.

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