The ‘Irish Option’ that could tackle UK’s traveller site surge: Calls to make trespass a criminal offence in bid to stop illegal land grabs
Andy Burnham is being urged to adopt what critics call the 'Irish Option' – making trespass a criminal rather than civil offence – to tackle a sharp rise in unauthorised traveller encampments across England. Tory housing spokesman Sir James Cleverly wants police, not just councils, given powers to act quickly against illegal sites, arguing this would create a genuine deterrent, and says a future Conservative government would leave the European Convention on Human Rights to prevent such a law being struck down, as happened to a similar measure introduced under Boris Johnson in 2024.
Official figures recorded 4,950 caravans on land without planning permission in January, a 73 per cent rise over five years, with 615 unauthorised sites on land not owned by travellers – up 81 per cent year-on-year. Kent has emerged as a particular hotspot, with five illegal sites appearing in the hamlet of Sandway within nine months, while Roundhay Park in Leeds has seen four encampments this year. Critics also accuse Angela Rayner's department of weakening protections by removing references to environmental damage and long-distance travelling concerns from the updated National Planning Policy Framework published on 17 August.
- Tories urge criminalising trespass to curb illegal traveller encampments, Irish-style.
- Unauthorised caravan sites up 73% in five years, officials say.
- Critics say revised planning rules make new illegal camps easier to set up.
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Andy Burnham is the Mayor of Greater Manchester, and this row centres on his response to a rising number of unauthorised traveller encampments in England, where caravans are pitched on land, including public parks and countryside, without planning permission. The "Irish Option" refers to a legal approach used in the Republic of Ireland, where trespass on land is treated as a criminal matter that police can act on directly, rather than a civil dispute that landowners and councils must pursue through the courts, which campaigners say is slower and less effective.
Sir James Cleverly, the Conservative Party's housing spokesman, is one of the key figures pushing for this change in England. The debate also touches on the Human Rights Act and the European Convention on Human Rights, since a similar criminal trespass law introduced in 2024 was previously struck down, and on planning policy set by Angela Rayner's department, which critics say has softened safeguards around unauthorised sites.
The issue matters because it sits at the intersection of property rights, policing resources, local community concerns, and the rights and living conditions of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities, making it a recurring and often contentious topic in British politics.
Both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
Supporters argue that a sharp, measurable rise in unauthorised encampments shows the current civil-law framework is too slow and toothless, leaving landowners, farmers and local communities to bear real costs in damage, clean-up and lost amenity while councils wait weeks for court orders. They contend that giving police the same swift powers used in the Republic of Ireland would create a genuine deterrent, restore public confidence that trespass has consequences, and treat unlawful occupation of private or public land – a nature reserve, a park, a farmer's field – the same way any other property offence is treated. Advocates also frame this as a matter of fairness to settled residents and rule-of-law consistency, arguing that if leaving the ECHR is what it takes to make such protections legally durable, that is a price worth paying for enforceable local control over land use.
The case against
Critics counter that criminalising trespass risks turning a housing and site-provision failure into a matter for the police and courts, disproportionately targeting Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities whose nomadic way of life is recognised in law and who face a chronic, long-documented shortage of authorised stopping places. They argue that without adequate legal sites, families are effectively forced into unauthorised encampments to go about ordinary life, and that criminal sanctions punish people for a problem local and national government have failed to solve, rather than addressing root causes such as planning refusals and underinvestment in transit provision. They also warn that weakening ECHR protections to insulate such a law from legal challenge sets a troubling precedent for minority rights more broadly, and that the removal of environmental and travelling-distance considerations from planning guidance should be scrutinised on its own merits rather than assumed to be a one-sided loosening of protections.