VILLAGERS are now awaiting the results of a two-day public inquiry into whether a strip of Burnley land should be declared a village green.

The closing day of a hearing by the Commons and Town Greens Sub-committee heard a farmer those people in Lowerhouse who used his farmland and wanted to make it a village green as "trespassers."

Gerald Collinge said he had used land off Liverpool Road to graze cattle, though never left them there overnight. He also told the inquiry at the Rosegrove Unity Working Men's Club, in Accrington Road, that since taking over the farm in 1961 he had taken a hay crop from the fields once or twice a year. Mr Collinge currently rents the field from the landowner George Dickinson and said in recent years the agreement had been a simple verbal one. He said he was aware people had used the field to walk their dogs and had not wanted to prevent them provided they caused no interference.

But he said: "The only person with any rights was me because I was paying rent for the use of it."

Mr Collinge, whose family moved onto the farm in 1938, suffered an illness in 1991 and changed his business to providing livery and stabling. He allowed the top part of the field in question to be used to exercise horses. The battle over the stretch of land off Liverpool Road land has lasted years and seemed to be resolved in January when councillors approved proposals for warehouses and industrial development.

But if campaigners Susan Cartin, of Sweetclough Drive, and John Greenwood, of Holyoake Street, are successful in their application for village green status, the development will be prevented. They have gathered more than 50 statements from residents in support of their application. It is not yet known when the councillors will make their decision on the application.