Traveller Caravan Count: Bi-Annual Official Statistics for England

The Count of Traveller Caravans is a bi-annual statistical collection by the UK's Communities and Local Government department, recording the number of caravans on authorised and unauthorised sites across England. Data is collected every January and June, providing a time series at local authority, regional, and national levels. It is designated as Official Statistics, though not as National Statistics, and was previously known as the Gypsy and Traveller caravan count.

Use Cases

• Monitoring local authority site provision and unauthorised encampments based on the count of caravans by tenure.
• Analyzing regional trends in Traveller caravan numbers based on bi-annual time-series data.
• Informing housing and planning policy decisions based on administrative counts at the Local Authority District level.

Strengths

• Provides a consistent bi-annual time series, with counts conducted every January and June.
• Offers geographic breakdowns at Local Authority District, Government Office Region, and National levels for England.
• Released as Official Statistics under the OGL-UK-3.0 license, ensuring public accessibility.

Limitations

• Key metadata such as row count, specific column names, and dataset size are not provided in the available sources.
• The dataset's designation is noted as 'Official Statistics not designated as National Statistics', which may indicate a specific methodological or quality assessment status.
• The exact temporal coverage of the time series is not specified, only the collection frequency.

Provenance

Source

Communities and Local Government (CLG), part of the UK's Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.

Collection Method

Administrative data collected via a bi-annual statistical count.

Freshness

Last updated on 2026-07-08 according to one source, though this appears to be a future date which may indicate a data entry error or placeholder.

Geography

England