I don't see a problem here in the NE, there may be some but not that i am aware of. We have councils who have invested, created sites and upgraded existing sites and instead of fighting them they have worked with them and the local communities they are placed in. There's an article in the Newcastle Journal from 2012 about it. Elsewhere it seems that everyone is against them and don't want them in their village so fight against planning for sites. Planning was put in to increase our towns site but there were no objections to the plans whatsoever, i suspect in other areas, nice leafy villages where sites exist that locals would fight against them expanding. The problem's seem to arise because everyone is against them, maybe the traveller's were there first.
I believe the established sites probably have a hierarchy, seems to be one family who runs ours and i guess its what they say goes so people tow the line, when you have these pop up sites you just have angry, displaced people who have been abused by locals, told 'their kind' are not wanted because they bring an area down, they have no where to go, everyone is against them so F**k the system, they have screwed us, everyone is against us so i will leave all this mess and smash things up, why keep it nice, doesn't matter anyway as its clear we are not wanted, whatever we do we can't win anyway. That seems to be how it goes.
Where do you house them? Give them priority over folk on the waiting list already? that causes more resentment. They are then given a house they don't want to live in while someone else is pushed down the que, someone who's probably waited years and years. There are not enough houses to house the people who need and want to live in them never mind bumping people who don't up the list so they don't make illegal sites. It seems quite simple to me, invest in and build more legal sites like what has been done here. As long as people keep saying no, not in my back yard the problem with illegal sites will just get worse.