Mary Reid

Swallow Park is Kingston's official traveller site. It lies alongside the A3, at the far end of Tolworth Girls' School playing fields.

Just before Christmas we heard the good news that the Government had agreed to the bid for £1.9million to completely refurbish the site. It has not met current standards for some time. The new plans provide two further pitches to relieve the overcrowding These will be located on the patch of land to the front, which has not been used much except for fly-tipping. There will also be a new wall to the front, matching the ones nearby, to act as a sound and pollution barrier.

Travellers are among the most deprived communities in the UK. But, as well as meeting their needs, it is important that Kingston provides adequate pitches; if it doesn't then the law will uphold the right of other travellers to stay on land where they do not have planning permission.

This has been part of the issue with the unlawful site in Clayton Road (just beyond the Nursery) - the courts may not uphold an enforcement order against them if the borough does not provide sufficient lawful pitches elsewhere.

The Swallow Park residents have been involved in drawing up the plans to meet their needs, so they are happy with them. The Council has kept the the residents living in the roads near to Swallow Park informed about the proposals. They held a public meeting last year to discuss the plans with them. Only one couple turned up, and they were very positive about what they saw.

So I was rather puzzled by the report on the BBC this morning. It was very brief, but it suggested that residents and campaigners were unhappy about the funding. The report did not explain why they were not pleased, and unfortunately I can't find the item on the BBC website.

My guess is that there is a general annoyance, which I share, that councils are not given any funding to improve existing social housing, let along to build more houses. The Government will only provide funding for housing through housing associations, not local councils. So where the council tenants (as in Kingston) have opted to stay with the council, rather than have their homes transferred to a housing association, they are penalised by the Government.

However, that is no reason not to be grateful that some funding has been provided for one aspect of social housing, namely travellers sites.