Rising East Online

Photo-essay

Looking through the Gateway

Cray’s Hill Travellers

—Olivia Woodhouse

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Cray’s Hill is an Irish travellers’ site in Basildon, Essex. Although the land is owned by the travellers, only half the site has planning permission. The site was originally a scrap yard and the occupants have spent four years clearing the area of debris.

The site has recently faced much criticism in the press, in particular by the Sun newspaper which made it the focus of a campaign to ‘Stamp on the Camps’.

As I write, the travellers are currently awaiting a decision about whether they can remain living on the land. The verdict is expected early in 2007. I wanted to gauge the mood of the site before the court’s verdict.

20 families who are related occupy the site. Living together is very important to their way of life and Kathleen (pictured in the caravan lit up in the dark) is worried about how they would manage to do this on the open road. Kathleen also explained how difficult it is to meet basic needs on the roadside. For example, finding a water supply is difficult. Catering for these needs occupies much of the day.

How I worked on this project:

Having spent a few years establishing myself as a freelance photographer, this summer I had enough time and regular income to start my own photography projects.

I worry about the voyeuristic nature of photojournalism and want to take images that involve the people I photograph. In this project I felt it was important to represent the travellers in a way they felt comfortable with. At the same time I need to be able to illustrate my view.

My second challenge is to get beneath the surface of a community.

My idea was to spend a lot of time revisiting the site to build up trust and to hear the travellers’ point of view. I could not have chosen a harder group of people for my first project. They are rightly suspicious of the press (a court injunction was recently issued against a local reporter), and it took me several visits to persuade them to let me photograph.

The second problem I had was their commitment to our meetings. The site is 30 miles from where I live and often the people I came to photograph were not there or they had a change of heart about their inclusion in photos.

While I am not entirely dissatisfied with the photos I can see changes I want to make during my next project. I need to get further beneath the surface of a community or individual. I can also see a long engagement with the struggle between representing my point of view and respecting the subjects’ involvement and expectations.

Olivia Woodhouse is a photographer www.oliviaphotos.com

Notes

1. Gypsies and Irish Travellers are left homeless because there are too few sites. This is because local authorities no longer have a legal duty to provide them. The obligation was removed in 1994.
2. 15,068 travellers live in caravans.
3. 28% of traveller caravans are on unauthorised developments or encampments. 12% of these caravans are on land that is owned by travellers but they do not have planning permission.
4. Since 1996 the number of caravans has remained constant but the number on unauthorised developments has increased, while those on unauthorised encampments has decreased.
5. According to the Commission for Racial Equality ‘Some Irish travellers and gypsies feel the planning system is so weighted against them that they would stand a better chance of getting permission if they were already established on a site when their application was assessed’.
6. Commission for racial Equality www.cre.gov.uk

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