Council acts to close caravan 'village' housing migrant agricultural workers

Alexandra Wood

A FARMER is facing enforcement action over a caravan park housing migrant workers on his land.

East Riding Council is “likely” to serve a formal notice on Chris Hoggard, who farms at Huggate, on the Yorkshire Wolds, where workers from Poland and Latvia live when working on his strawberry crop.

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The premises were visited last year by planning officers and representatives from the Gangmasters Licensing Authority.

Neither the caravans, which house dozens of workers at the peak of the season, or a number of large polytunnels, covering 10 hectares of strawberries, have planning permission.

After the visit Mr Hoggard surrendered his gangmaster’s licence.

Peter Jackson, the Council’s private sector housing manager said: “We’ve seen the site grow over the last 18 months from a handful of caravans. Now there are 30-plus caravans on the site occupied by upwards of five migrant workers.”

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Mr Jackson said planning enforcement could take a year at least, because of the appeals process.

However Mr Hoggard said he’d withdrawn his gangmaster’s licence as it was not commercially-viable.

He said he had “extensive” discussions with East Riding Council adding: “It seems to be unclear over whether you need planning permission at all for caravans for seasonal agricultural workers. There’s nobody else that has been asked for planning permission for polytunnels that I am aware of.

“We haven’t done anything wrong.

“We have been growing strawberries here under polytunnels with migrant workers housed in caravans since 1991 and this has all blown up in the last few years,” he said.

“We’d just like to continue to do what we are doing.

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“They are temporary structures, they have no foundations and no water supply or anything, they are simply used to keep the worst of the weather off the crop.”

Mr Hoggard said there were only 12 workers living at the site at the moment.

His partner Chloe Gayle said: “We are not clear where the complaints come from, however we are happy to employ British seasonal workers who are reliable and have a strong work ethic. Historically we have found this not to be the case.

“However we retain 12 British full-time employees who are long-standing and reliable.”

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A report to a meeting of the East Riding Council’s safer and stronger communities, where the issue was raised, said it was “likely” that a formal enforcement notice would be issued “to secure the removal of the caravans and polytunnels shortly.”

The same meeting heard a dozen migrant workers are living rough in Goole, some in houses earmarked for demolition with no electricity or running water.

Just before Christmas 30 migrant workers were forced to sleep in tents after losing their jobs.

Government statistics show that 760,935 migrant workers are currently officially registered in the country.