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David Wright/Wikimedia Commons https://www.geograph.org.uk/profile/1782
UK News

Travellers could be welcomed onto church land under CofE plans

The proposals were contained in a new report which also claimed travellers had been shown "extreme levels of hostility" in society - and the Church was partly to blame.

It concluded: "Churches too have been part of this institutional racism in their failure to welcome gypsies and travellers into the full life of their communities.

"There is much anecdotal evidence of people being refused baptism, weddings and funerals and such things as churches cutting off the outside tap for the graveyard [to stop travellers accessing water]."

The report has been created by Church of England minority concerns advisor Dr Elizabeth Henry and backed by the Bishop of Chelmsford. It will be presented to the Church's governing body later this month.

General Synod February 2018

If its recommendations are accepted by General Synod, Church institutions and individual congregations will be urged to invite housing associations to use their land for traveller accommodation.

Dr Elizabeth's document also said that every CofE diocese ought to appoint a chaplain dedicated to the traveller community.

Sebastian Ballard/Wikimedia Commons/ https://www.geograph.org.uk/profile/18677

There has been a wave of trespassing accusations made against travellers in the UK during recent years.

Two years ago, Premier reported how travellers entered the grounds of a church in south London. Members of Ruach City Church in Norbury were blocked from entering the site for approximately 24 hours.

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