Travellers have won a 17-year battle to stay on farmland in south Shropshire after planners approved a scheme for a ten-pitch site.
The move proved to be a victory for farmer Tom Evans, of the Oakery in Wheatcommon Lane, near Ashford Carbonel, who submitted the latest proposal to the district council.
But two local residents objected at south Shropshire District Council’s Development Control Committee meeting yesterday, adding their voices to 29 letters of objection to the site.
There were two letters of support which stated that by law the council must find 18 pitches for traveller accommodation by 2012.
The committee passed the plans, providing a committee is set up to find a way of satisfying the council that every applicant was a traveller.
The council discovered the unauthorised occupation of the land in 1991 and enforcement notices were put up.
Following more applications, Mr Evans was prosecuted for failure to comply with an enforcement notice and fined £5,000 in 2006 by magistrates.
A fresh application was made in January 2007 and refused in March.
A planning inquiry was consequently held in October last year when the council decided to allow only two occupants and their families to stay for 12 months.
The council’s head of planning and building control, Jake Berriman, recommended the latest plans for approval and said the proposals were “fresh and forward looking”.
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