Concerns have been raised that it is becoming increasingly difficult to differentiate the gypsy and traveller community from homeless people living in caravans. 

People unable to afford a home due to cost-of-living pressures are increasingly turning to mobile properties, leading to "confusion" over whether people are from traveller communities, government planning officials have heard. 

The comments were made by Ashley Grant, the service manager for the Norfolk and Suffolk Gypsy Roma Traveller (GRT) Service, which helps landowners manage unauthorised encampments on their land. 

He said: “We have a growing issue with people living alternatively due to the financial crisis and wishing to live in caravans. 

“There is many an encampment I have seen which people believe are GRT which in fact end up being, regrettably, homeless.  

“That is a growing trend and I think there will be a great amount of confusion about who is from the GRT community and who is homeless due to the present economic downturn. 

“I’m now finding as many, if not more, non-GRT unauthorised encampments as I do from the GRT community.” 

Stuart Carruthers, a planning agent who often works with the travelling community, told officials it was not just caravans that people had turned to, with more people using boats as homes. 

The pair made the comments during a hearing organised by the government’s Planning Inspectorate examining gypsy and traveller sites in the Greater Norwich Local Plan (GNLP). 

The GNLP is a blueprint for where almost 50,000 homes could be built in Norwich, South Norfolk and Broadland between now and 2038.  

For the GNLP to be approved by the inspectors at least 53 pitches needed to be identified. 

GNLP officials have identified 35 initial pitches which can be developed by 2027.  

Planning officials expect a further 12 windfall pitches will come forward to meet unmet needs by the end of the GNLP period in 2038.