Inside UK’s ‘Gypsy capital’ where locals fear having windows smashed & travellers race carts in £2,700 crocodile shoes
LOOKING glam and heavily bronzed, two women in their twenties wearing shorts and T-shirts with their hair in curlers stride confidently from a tanning salon.
One pauses before opening her car door and snarls at our reporter: “We’re from the travelling community and we don’t speak to no-one. Now f*** off or I’ll run you over.”
Her steely glare suggested she wasn’t joking but the owner of the salon – Florida Tanning in the Stainforth area of Doncaster, South Yorkshire – tells us: “Loads of travellers come here and they’re no bother.
“They like to look good so we get good custom from them.”
Doncaster, said to be the gypsy capital of the UK, has the biggest concentration of travellers in England and Wales.
And walking through the streets the community’s presence is clear.
On the other side of town, a tailback stretches into the distance as everything comes to a halt for the sake of a nervous pony.
Pulling a two-wheeled carriage bearing a man and a boy aged about ten, the brown and white horse has taken fright after being asked to turn right across the traffic into the travellers’ camp where they live.
The lad jumps down and takes hold of the bridle, pulling it forward until the horse begins a reluctant trot across stationary traffic.
In Doncaster, weary drivers are used to sharing the roads with ponies and traps and barely give the travellers’ vehicle a second glance.
Travellers account for 0.3 per cent of the city’s 308,000 population and 1.5 per cent of the UK’s entire Gypsy and Irish traveller community live in Doncaster.
That’s just ahead of Maidstone, Kent, and Leeds, West Yorks, with 1.4 per cent.
In nearby Bradford there’s 1.3 per cent – the same population figure as Swale in Kent.
The town is also the second most deprived in South Yorkshire and was named as one of the most vulnerable places in the country to live in the cost of living crisis.
Fly-tipping fury
There are four permanent gypsy sites located on the edge of town away from conventional housing.
Meanwhile, thousands are living in bricks and mortar homes rather than caravans, though locals say there’s no mistaking a traveller whether they live in a caravan or not.
At the site in Thorne, an area which makes up part of the Doncaster borough, there is fury about the state of the road leading up to the traveller site at Land’s End.
The verges are strewn with plastic drinking bottles and cans, which appear to have been tossed through the windows of passing vehicles.
Fridges lie rusting away, there’s a pile of hazardous asbestos roofing material and old mattresses are stacked on top of each other along the half mile stretch.
Locals blame the travellers for the mess, although it is accepted that no one has proof of who is responsible, and fly tipping is a problem in the area.
Gypsy and traveller community in Doncaster
According to Doncaster City Council, “Doncaster is the permanent home to the UK’s largest gypsy/traveller populations.”
The website adds: “A large proportion who reside in Doncaster now live in bricks and mortar accommodation or privately owned sites.”
The council provide three sites for ‘Ethnic Travellers’, one for ‘New Travellers’ and three for ‘residents of Doncaster who wish to live in a caravan.’
1.5 per cent of Gypsy or Irish Traveller ethnic groups lived in Doncaster, making up 0.3 per cent of the local population.
‘It’s an absolute disgrace’
One resident – a dad too afraid to give his name for fear of reprisals – said: “Of course it’s the travellers who do it, there were never any problems like that before the camp at Thorne was established.
“It’s an absolute disgrace, nothing ever seems to get done.
“The council has not come along to clean up the mess so it remains an eyesore.
“No one would ever dare take the travellers to task over it because it’s just not worth it if you value your own property.”
Visitors to the Clay Lane fixed site are also greeted by chaotic scenes.
Broken trailers, caravans and cars are strewn by the roadside and piles of rubbish, one still smouldering from a fire, line the road into the camp, which is tightly packed with caravans.
One local resident said: “They’re at the bottom of an industrial estate, well out of the way.
“There’s the odd bit of antisocial behaviour but they stick to their own. The place looks a mess, but it’s their own mess to live in, no one else goes there.”
Big spenders
While some are scathing of the behaviour of travellers – a term which specifically refers to groups of Irish origin – just as many locals say they play a key role in the city’s identity as well as its economy.
Traveller mums think nothing of spending £99 on a pair of kangaroo-skin baby booties imported from Australia, or expensive and ostentatious baby outfits from Spain.
At The Shoe Room in the city centre, owners Richard and Michelle Smith currently have 14 pairs of RM Williams crocodile boots – handmade in Adelaide – on the order books, all of them for traveller men.
Each pair will be snapped up for a cool £2,700.
They are great customers, they love their kids and they have a huge amount of pride in how well their little ones are turned out
Jane O'Donnell
Michelle said: “The travelling community have been great customers of ours and they absolutely love the high end brands, especially RM Williams at present.
“Most pairs of their boots retails at around £425 to £450, so aren’t cheap but the must-have item at the moment are the crocodile boot at £2,700.
“They’re quite happy to pay over £400 for their little boys’ boots.
“Belts are also a big seller for us to the traveller community but we’ve had parents trying to get them for the kids in children’s sizes and they don’t do them.
“One family had a way around the problem. RM Williams do dog collars and it was big enough to fit around the little one’s waist so it made a great belt.
“Over the last seven years that we’ve been open there have only been a handful of problems involving the community – they’ve been really loyal and valued customers.”
Doncaster in numbers
- In 2021, the population of Doncaster was 308,108.
- 7 per cent of residents in Doncaster are from a minority ethnic group. This is a lot lower than the national average of 19 per cent.
- 74 per cent of working-age adults (aged 16 to 64) in Doncaster are in employment. This is slightly lower than the national average of 76 per cent.
- 63 per cent of households own their own homes (including with a mortgage), which is similar to the national average of 62 per cent.
- The annual crime rate in Doncaster postcode area is 45.1 crimes per 1,000 people as of March 2025, which is 30 per cent higher than the national crime rate in England and Wales.
- Violent crime makes up 36.6 per cent of all crimes reported in the postcode area.
- In February, Doncaster city centre was named as the second most crime-ridden neighbourhood in England and Wales, second only to Birmingham’s New Street district.
- A study analysed 37,000 neighbourhoods across the country and ranked them by total crime, crime rates per 1,000 population and per square mile.
- Doncaster’s figures showed there were 1,187 crimes, with a crime rate of 766 per 1,000 people and 5,587 crimes per square mile.
Jane O’Donnell, owner of the Amelia Rose Baby and Children’s Wear boutique, agrees.
She is also grateful for the spending power of traveller mums who buy imported frilly outfits in bright colours for their tots.
Jane said: “I don’t have a bad word for them.
“They are great customers, they love their kids and they have a huge amount of pride in how well their little ones are turned out.
“They love to come and browse with their babies in prams and buggies and they’ve become my best customers.
“There are good and bad people in all communities and the travellers are no different.”
Theft and threats
Other traders in the city centre tell a different story of theft, threats and intimidation.
Shopkeepers spoke to The Sun on the understanding they would not be identified because, as one put it: “It’s expensive to get all your windows replaced.”
A shoe shop owner said: “They’ll come in and try to barter over an expensive pair of shoes but they’ll do what’s called ‘safe bidding.’
“If a pair of shoes is worth £700, a traveller man will offer £400 knowing it’s never going to be accepted.
These are usually big and intimidating guys. One bloke walked out of here with a free pair of shoes because he threatened to unleash what he called ‘Mr Nasty’ if I didn’t replace a perfectly good pair he’d bought from us
Anonymous shop owner
“It’s a way of showing off in front of your mates and making sure people think you have £400 to spend.
“These are usually big and intimidating guys. One bloke walked out of here with a free pair of shoes because he threatened to unleash what he called Mr Nasty’ if I didn’t replace a perfectly good pair he’d bought from us.”
Near the White Towers gypsy site in Armthorpe – home to the reluctant pony – a shopkeeper said his general store had been targeted by shoplifting from traveller kids.
But he added: “I don’t have a problem with the traveller community. There’s nothing you can do, you just have to accept it and move on.”
Living ‘a more settled life’
Jennifer Bell, 59, said her family had married into the travelling fraternity.
Jennifer, of Armthorpe, said: “They’re part of this town whether some people like it or not.
“The travellers are good people with traditions and values.
“The people who really cause difficulties are asylum seekers and immigrants who come in from Eastern Europe.
“They are the ones responsible for most of the fly tipping we see in the town.
“My mum was one of 14 and several of the family married travellers.
“I also have a niece who is married to a traveller lad, though they’re part of the younger generation and many of them live in houses around the town.
“They’re living a more settled life.”
Unruly behaviour
However, a source at Vue Cinema on Doncaster Leisure Park claimed staff had been forced to wear body cams due to unruly behaviour from traveller children.
The source said: “They grab whatever they can, mostly sweets from the containers, and pocket as much as possible.
“Staff who have confronted them have been assaulted.
“They have been asked to wear body cameras to try to prevent crime and also for their own protection.”
Doncaster Council’s Director of Place, Dan Swaine, said: “We absolutely deplore fly-tipping.
“Deterrents range from a maximum £50,000 fine to a custodial sentence.
“We are aware that this particular area is a challenge and have our ways and means of surveillance in the area – including links to the local police force.”