How many of us have dreamed of escaping the rat race and going wherever the mood takes us? Strange then, that the settled community finds it so difficult to accept the nomadic lifestyle of gypsies and travellers. This anti-traveller feeling dates to the 16th century when Romany gypsies first arrived in Britain and Henry VIII passed laws discriminating against them.

Local authorities have not had to provide accommodation for gypsies and travellers since 1994, when the Criminal Justice and Public Disorder Act repealed the statutory duty to provide static sites contained in the Caravan Site Act 1968. Yet even when this duty was in place - and central government funding was available to implement it - there was little enforcement to ensure councils complied, and many failed to do so.

The publication in January of the Traveller Law Reform Bill gave hope to those working with travellers that improvements could soon be seen (see below). This private member's bill was drafted by the traveller law research unit at Cardiff University and could introduce significant new duties for English and Welsh local authorities in relation to the travelling population.

But the bill failed to get a second reading when it was introduced in the House of Commons in July and will have to start the parliamentary process again.

It needs government support, says Emma Nuttall, unit manager for voluntary organisation Friends, Families and Travellers. Even if it does not become law, all is not lost, says Nuttall. The government could transfer some clauses into housing or homelessness legislation to address the main problems faced by gypsies and travellers.

But is there the political will and local funding to make the bill work? Nuttall believes that proposals in the bill would not require local authority finance. But Jane Held, co-chairperson of the Association of Directors of Social Services' children and families committee, disagrees. She says: "Councils will find it hard to identify additional resources to fund the new duties, which will mean very patchy implementation, with some councils being proactive and building on what they are already doing, and others not."

There are 325 local authority residential sites for travellers in England, providing more than 5,000 pitches. But about one-third of travelling people do not have a pitch on such a site and, since the Caravan Site Act was repealed, there has been no impetus for councils to provide more sites. Meanwhile, planning and land control laws have made it difficult for travellers to remain mobile. It is estimated that 90 per cent of their traditional stopping places have been made inaccessible in the past 20 years.

The government's thinking behind repealing the Caravan Site Act was to privatise sites by encouraging travelling communities to find land, buy it and live on it. But this has proved difficult. Where 80 per cent of the settled population are granted planning permission on their first application, this is the case for only 10 per cent of travellers.

Gypsies and Irish travellers are ethnic minorities protected by race relations legislation, but their issues appear to have fallen off the agenda. "It's an anomaly that they are the only group of people who don't have their housing needs met," says Nuttall. "They are homeless and could be offered council housing, but that's not what they want. It doesn't meet their cultural need."

Without a pitch on an authorised site, travellers are forced to keep moving and resort to unauthorised sites. They then face problems in accessing health care, education, social services and basic amenities such as running water and toilets. It is not difficult to see why travelling communities have a higher infant mortality rate and lower life expectancy rate than the settled population in the UK. "The only way this can be resolved is by providing accommodation," says Nuttall.

Children can be particularly badly affected. Save the Children believes that travelling children's rights are not being met under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. It is running an early years project in Herefordshire to work with travelling families, schools and local authorities to overcome segregation and make mainstream services accessible. Margaret Thompson, the charity's assistant programme director for the Midlands, says: "The very nature of the children's lifestyle actually reinforces their social exclusion, especially when mobility is enforced." Pre-school services are difficult to access, which makes travelling children's transition to school even more problematic. "Schools will block them by saying that there aren't any places in the hope that they will have moved on by the time this has gone to the local education authority," says Thompson.

What about when children grow up? As a gypsy liaison officer for Epsom and Ewell Borough Council, Surrey, Kevin Ryan is responsible for two sites in the area with 30 pitches between them. He says that families are not allowed to "double up" on pitches, with the effect that, when the children grow up, they have to move away, leaving behind family and friends.

Travellers who do get a pitch on an authorised site are now less likely to move around because they do not want to lose it. At the moment, there are 84 families on the waiting list for the two sites. "Just because they don't travel, it still runs deep in their blood that they are gypsies, they still have their beliefs, history and culture, as far as they are allowed to," says Ryan.

Surrey Council owns 19 sites, but it will be difficult for other councils to find suitable land on which to build sites, bearing in mind the feelings of the settled population about travellers, says Ryan. Usually, sites are put where there is no other use for the land, under railways, next to motorways or by landfill sites.

Research from the traveller law research unit suggests that the money spent on evicting travellers from unauthorised sites may be twice that needed to build more sites. Moving travelling families from one place to the next perpetuates the problem rather than solves it.

The easy solution is to provide more sites, says Thompson. "But without statutory duties, we haven't got a lot of hope that it will be much different," she says. "There's no political will behind it - there's no votes in saying we'll have a gypsy site in your ward."

Meanwhile, the children who were 14 when Ryan started his job in Epsom and Ewell are now 19, with nowhere to go. He says: "It's going to be an ongoing problem unless sites are provided and I would suggest that it's going to get worse."    

Traveller law reform bill proposals

• Create a gypsy and Traveller Accommodation Commission to assess the need for sites in England and Wales and monitor the provision of accommodation.
• Local authorities to have a duty to provide or facilitate the provision of sites for gypsies and travellers in their area; for example, by giving planning permission for owner-occupied sites, "tolerating" established sites and working with housing associations that would have powers to provide and manage sites.
• Local authorities to provide safe play areas and play equipment for children living on travellers' sites, as well as facilities or equipment to ensure a safe and healthy environment for site occupants.
• Local authorities to prepare and publish a gypsy and traveller accommodation programme.
• If local authorities failed to provide sufficient sites, this would be taken into consideration if they tried to evict travellers from unauthorised sites. Planning inspectors would also take this into account when looking at planning applications from travellers wanting to set up their own sites.
• Local education authorities to have gypsy and traveller education plans setting out the arrangements to meet the educational needs, the arrangements for pre-school education and to promote lifelong learning for those older than 16.
• Housing Corporation funding to be extended to caravan site construction.