05/03/2021
The holiday firm Pontins has been investigated by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), after a whistleblower revealed the existence of a blacklist being used to prevent members of the traveller community from booking holidays at their sites.
In fact the policy was far more wide reaching than the traveller community. A list was placed on the Pontins intranet under the heading “Undesirable Guests”, instructing call handlers that people using certain names were “unwelcome”. There were 40 surnames of people that were not welcome on their parks.
The fact that they decided to use an image and iconic phrase from The Lord of The Rings was probably meant to be funny. It wasn't. It just added to the vulgarity of the policy.
If these 40 names were supposed to be surnames of people who are undesirable; well, it just shows how ignorant the xenophobia that led to this decision was. I doubt many people can look at this list and say that they don't have close personal friends or family members with some of those surnames.
I guess that's not the point though.
Whether you know and love someone with any of these surnames is completely irrelevant.
Discrimination, of all types, is obscene and unacceptable.
The EHRC has stated that, by declining to provide its services to guests of a certain race or ethnic group, Pontins was “directly discriminating on the basis of race” and had “breached the Equality Act”.
The EHRC also stated that Pontins had been monitoring calls to its contact centre and refused or subsequently cancelled bookings made by some people with Irish accents or surnames. Additionally, they used their 'commercial vehicles policy' to exclude Gypsies and Travellers from their holiday parks.
The issue is also prevalent in many touring caravan parks.
Many UK sites have bans on 'continental caravans' (caravans where the access door is on the other side of the vehicle), which are favoured by the traveller community. They also frequently have bans on commercial vehicles, similar to the issue cited by the EHRC in respect of Pontins.
I actually approached a site a few weeks ago about their policy of no continental caravans. I enquired as to why they had such a policy and they did respond. Their claim was that their pitches were not suitable for continental caravans.
This was, I felt, insincere.
Aside from the fact that I had seen continental caravans on many sites, using ordinary pitches, there's the fact that UK caravaners are able to holiday throughout Europe without such restrictions on 'foreign caravans'.
It's just a lie, meant to disguise the inherent racism that is behind the policy.
Some people will suggest that this is fine; that travellers cause problems and it's okay for sites to restrict access to those considered less desirable. But, that's a pretty ugly attitude.
Travellers that pitch up in local communities and site themselves without legal authority do definitely cause some issues. I'm not personally convinced that they wreak quite the havoc that some complainants suggest, but they don't have permission to use the grounds they sometimes pitch up at.
This is however completely different for those who are booking formal camping grounds and paying the site fees. They use the facilities, just as the rest of us do.
I've said it many times, in previous posts, that all discrimination is wrong.
Discriminating against travellers is no more acceptable than discriminating against someone based upon their colour, their religion, their sexuality or anything else.
It's time those sites who have discriminatory policies realised that it is not acceptable.
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