The government should set up a five-year task force to address the shortage of appropriate sites for gypsies and travellers, a leading gypsy rights campaigner said last week.

Charles Smith, chairperson of the Gypsy Council for Education, Culture, Welfare and Civil Rights, made the demand at a London conference on developing services for gypsies and travellers.

Smith said:"We need a task force that includes gypsy people, paid as equals."

He also said that local authorities were failing to maintain the few sites that were currently available. "Sites are in disrepair. This would not be tolerated in other social housing systems."

A spokesperson for the deputy prime minister John Prescott said he would consider the views of the conference.

She added that last month the gypsy site refurbishment grant for 2003-4 had been extended by £8m to enable local authorities to deal with unauthorised encampments and to provide transitory sites to gypsies and travellers.