Lisa Smith v Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities & Anor [2022] EWCA Civ 1391
Smith Traveller discrimination is a major Court of Appeal judgment on the 2015 planning definition of Gypsies and Travellers. The court held that applying the exclusion to Lisa Smith and her family produced unlawful indirect discrimination which had not been justified.
The Inspector’s decision was quashed. The court did not make a general declaration that the whole national policy was unlawful, and the restrictive 2015 definition has since been replaced.
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- Neutral citation
- [2022] EWCA Civ 1391
- Court
- Court of Appeal (Civil Division)
- Judgment date
- 31st October 2022
- Judge
- Sir Keith Lindblom, Senior President of Tribunals, Lord Justice Holroyde and Lord Justice Coulson
- Case number
- CA-2021-001741
What the Smith Traveller discrimination case concerned
Lisa Smith and her family had lived in caravans on a site at Coalville in Leicestershire. Two of her adult sons had serious disabilities. A temporary permission had previously been granted, but the later application for a permanent site was refused and the Inspector dismissed the appeal in 2018.
The difficulty arose from the 2015 version of Planning Policy for Traveller Sites. Its definition excluded people who had permanently stopped travelling, even where they had done so because of disability, ill health or old age.
The 2015 exclusion was indirectly discriminatory
The Secretary of State accepted that the exclusion put elderly and disabled Gypsies and Travellers at a particular disadvantage. The dispute was whether that discriminatory effect was legally justified.
The Court of Appeal held that the High Court had approached the burden of proof incorrectly. Once the discriminatory effect was established, it was for the Secretary of State to justify it. Ms Smith did not face an extra “high hurdle” simply because the policy was national planning policy.
Ethnicity and caravan living could not be separated from the analysis
The court also held that race was not an incidental feature of the case. Romany Gypsies are an ethnic group and, for this family, living in caravans was closely bound up with their cultural identity.
The policy therefore had to be examined not merely through disability and age, but also through the racial and cultural consequences of excluding settled or non-travelling Gypsies from the planning definition.
The Secretary of State had not justified the discriminatory effect
The Government relied on objectives including fairness and concentrating traveller-site policy on those pursuing a nomadic way of life. The Court of Appeal was not satisfied that the evidence demonstrated a legitimate aim capable of justifying the particular exclusion, or that the exclusion was proportionate.
The Government’s own equality material had identified serious possible consequences for elderly, disabled and other affected Gypsies and Travellers, including greater difficulty securing suitable accommodation, separation from their communities and impacts on health and education. A promised review of the policy had not resolved those concerns.
Ordinary planning discretion was not an adequate answer
The Secretary of State argued that people outside the policy definition could still rely on personal circumstances, the NPPF and Article 8 in an individual planning decision.
The court held that those general safeguards did not by themselves justify an indirectly discriminatory national definition. The practical way the planning system operated for the affected group had to be considered.
The Inspector’s decision was quashed, not the whole policy
This distinction matters. The proceedings were a section 288 challenge to an individual appeal decision. The Court of Appeal held that Ms Smith’s discrimination case succeeded and the Inspector’s decision was quashed and remitted.
The court did not make a free-standing declaration that the 2015 Planning Policy for Traveller Sites was invalid for every person and every future decision.
The planning definition has since changed
The restrictive 2015 definition at the heart of Smith is no longer the current planning position. The definition was broadened after the judgment, and the Government’s current material includes people who have ceased travelling temporarily or permanently for education, health or old age and also people with a cultural tradition of nomadism or living in a caravan.
In August 2026, the Government published a new National Planning Policy Framework which replaced the separate Planning Policy for Traveller Sites as the principal national policy framework for traveller-site decisions.
For today’s position, use our current guide to Gypsy and Traveller sites. The current Government framework is also available on GOV.UK.
Read the full Smith judgment
The full Court of Appeal judgment is held in the Planning Geek case law library. Gold Members can open the protected PDF below.
Smith Traveller Discrimination Case Law Page Updated: 9th September 2026