Travellers can call site 'home' after 15 year saga

Caravans first arrived at the site in June 2009

A traveller community has been granted the right to live on greenbelt land after a 15 year-long fight.

The site, on Hut Lane in Heath Charnock, has been given permanent permission by Chorley Council to be used as a residential facility, after it was acknowledged that the authority had failed to provide suitable accommodation elsewhere.

The Linfoot family, who live there, said the decision that the land was to become their "forever home" was "better than winning the lottery".

It brings the 15-year dispute between the family, the council and some neighbours to an end.

'Normal family life'

Caravans first arrived at the location in June 2009, after which the borough authority attempted to use its planning powers to end the unauthorised occupation of the land.

But in 2013, the council approved the first of a series of temporary permissions – with others following in 2015, 2018 and 2021 – each of which allowed the travellers to stay put for around three years.

At the same time, the authority was exploring the possibility of creating a permanent site as part of a wider housing and commercial development at Cowling Farm. 

But that scheme never materialised – amid rising costs and logistical complications – and a report presented to the planning committee this week revealed there was no “credible prospect” of it doing so.

Principal planning officer Iain Crossland said the “settled” status of the traveller community on the site and the lack of any alternative accommodation for them amounted to the “very special circumstances” needed to justify the harm to the greenbelt caused by the development.

Patty Linfoot told the committee that her family had spent 15 years trying to secure “a safe place to live” for members including her elderly parents and her now adult children – as well as for future generations.

“Contrary to belief, we are council taxpayers and have been since day one," she said. "This is the opportunity for Chorley to recognise – finally – that Gypsies are part of the community.

"We just want a normal life for our family and somewhere decent to live."

She was supported by local resident Jason Smalley who said the Linfoots had become “good neighbours…embracing as friends all who would accept them”.

But council leader Alistair Bradley – who is also the councillor for the Chorley South East and Heath Charnock ward in which Hut Lane sits – said he had been asked to speak on behalf of a group of residents, some of whom were in attendance, who were “overwhelmingly opposed” to permanent permission being granted.

They said that the weight given by planning officers to the site being for the wider Linfoot family was “badly undermined” by the absence of any conditions over the potential use of the plot by others in future.

The committee unanimously approved the application, which will allow up to seven caravans on the land, with a maximum of three being mobile homes.  

A condition will prevent the area being used for commercial purposes.