Hi Valerie,

The short answer is that you should be using the latest iteration.

The longer answer:
The advice the majority of local authorities entering examination have been given is that the "Smith" judgement and the defintions therein should be taken into account for any traveller site calculations.  This broadly correlates to the most up to date PPTS.  It is likely within your MIQs you will be asked about how you have worked to deliver a policy in line with the ruling handed down through "Smith".  Not taking this judgement fully into account has delayed a number of LP at examination.  I would suggest an advisory meeting with a PINS inspector may be helpful for you moving forward on this topic if it won't cause a delay.

More than happy to take a teams call to discuss in detail and to share some of the advice we have recieved through our own advisory meetings if that would be helpful- we have some clear similarities in terms of constraints and land supply.

The pragmatic answer - since the whole point of the transitional arrangements is not to halt very advanced plans - is to assume national planning policy as a whole that applied during the course of preparing your plan is that which should be applied.  However given you mention the traveller definition, does this mean you have planned for far less provision than the new more inclusive definition?  My concern would be that whatever the version of national guidance, the change was implemented directly as a result of the previous definition being found unlawful and potentially discriminatory back in late 2022.  This meant the 2015 definition was unlawful.  Might your plan equalities impact assessment have picked this up?  Annex 1 of the traveller guidance was amended in December 2023 as a result - although I can't track down easily a version of what changed but I believe re-introduced those travellers who had ceased to travel permanently back into into definition.    

The new guidance has been published in response to an October 2022 Court of Appeal ruling. In the judgment, the court upheld claims that the government’s planning policy definition of Gypsies and Travellers at the time discriminated unlawfully against those who had been forced to give up their nomadic lifestyles due to disability or old age.

The case had focused on the government’s planning policy for traveller sites 2015 document, which excluded those who have ceased to travel by reason of infirmity or advancing years from the definition of Gypsies and Travellers. The government has now added a glossary to its planning policy for traveller sites to address unlawful discrimination. It clarifies that Gypsies and Travellers means any “persons of nomadic habit of life whatever their race or origin, including such persons who on grounds only of their own or their family’s or dependants’ educational or health needs or old age have ceased to travel temporarily or permanently.” However, this excludes “members of an organised group of travelling showpeople or circus people travelling together as such”, according to the glossary.

In determining whether persons are Gypsies and Travellers, the glossary also reads, “consideration should be given to whether they previously led a nomadic habit of life; the reasons for ceasing their nomadic habit of life; and whether there is an intention of living a nomadic habit of life in the future, and if so, how soon and in what circumstances.”

Author: DLUHC

Date: 19/12/2023 Date of publication