CONNORS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT 15 between gypsy/traveller occupiers and any other occupiers who wish to place a mobile home on a local authority site, with security of tenure? And if there is to be no such differentiation, then the last state of gypsies whose cultural heritage or spiritual and cultural state of mind is nomadism or travelling may be worse than the first. At present that actual or potential nomadism (‘a substantial nomadic habit of life’) is the justification both for the lack of security of tenure and also for the special arrangements for local authority sites catering especially for them, i.e. within section 24 of the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960. Dr Kenrick himself refers obliquely to the problem, in paragraph 53 of his witness statement: “The residents of council sites do not have to retain their Gypsy status (by travelling for an economic purpose...) in order to retain their pitches.” ... 35. I am satisfied that ... the absence of security of tenure for all gypsy/travellers on all local authority sites, is still appropriate and justified. I have no doubt that the Government will give further thought to the position, as indicated in the October 2002 Report, will obtain the necessary further statistics and will, pursuant to its own declared intention to give protection to gypsies and their way of life, continue monitoring the present position. Meanwhile, the safeguard of judicial review remains, and, although there is some discussion in the Report (pp. 246-7) about the present lack of security of tenure, eviction of residential gypsy occupiers on local authority caravan sites is not flagged up as a present problem...” (c) Sheffield City Council v. Smart [2002] EWCA Civ O4 54. In this case, which dealt with local authority housing for the homeless that fell outside security of tenure provisions, the Court of Appeal rejected the applicants’ claims that their summary eviction breached Articles 6 or 8 of the Convention: “If this court were to hold that a tenant in the circumstances of either of these appellants is by force of Article 8(2) entitled to have the county court judge (or the judicial review court it matters not) decide on the particular facts whether her eviction is disproportionate to the council’s aim (in essence) of managing its housing stock properly, we would in effect thereby convert the non-secure tenancies enjoyed by homeless persons into a form of secure tenancy. We should be imposing a condition, not unlike the requirement of reasonableness presently applicable in relation to secure tenancies under the 1985 Act, which takes the judgment whether possession of the premises should be obtained from the landlord council and gives it to the court...[the appellants’ argument] ... amounts in truth to a ‘macro’ assault on the mechanics of the statutory scheme for protection of homeless persons...” 4. Report on the Provision and Condition of Local Authority Gypsy/Traveller Sites in England (October 2002) 55. This report, issued by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, summarises the information and conclusions of research on the extent and quality of local authority gypsy sites carried out by the Centre for Urban and Regional Studies at the University of Birmingham.