A SINGLE mum and her children have been allowed to carry on living in their Slaidburn holiday cottage.

Last month, planning officials agreed to further discuss the plight of shooting estate worker Pam Breaks and her two children, who live at Robinsons Cottage, Easington Road.

And now, Ribble Valley Council's planning and development committee has granted permission for her family to stay - as long as the property is kept solely as accommodation for employees of estate owners Peter and Vicky Wheeler.

Ms Breaks, who has lived at the cottage for almost a year, only discovered it had holiday-let status when she registered with the council to pay council tax.

But despite being advised to reject proposals to change the property from holiday-let status to all-year-round occupation, the committee voted to defer their decision until Tuesday night's meeting.

Ms Breaks said: "I've lived here with my two children for about a year. It's a lovely place and I never realised it was a holiday let.

"We are delighted to be able to stay as the children love the area. If we had been made to leave, the houses we could afford nearby would have needed a lot of work doing to them." She added: "Robinsons Cottage itself needed a lot of attention until the owners did it up."

The property will be able to revert to holiday-let status if, in future, it is not inhabited by estate employees. A further application from Mr and Mrs Wheeler to convert a barn into a gamekeeper's residence at Padiham Barn, Easington Road, Slaidburn, has been rejected.

No objections were raised by Slaidburn Parish Council, but an independent rural estates manager has advised that there is "no justification" for the proposal, because, he says, there is no need for a permanent gamekeeper.

In a report to the committee, planning officer John Macholc said: "Although the applicant has indicated that the purpose is to modernise the unit and make it available for guests, I don't consider this is a good enough reason to allow this conversion."

Chartered town planner Janet Dixon, speaking on behalf of the Wheelers, said that the gamekeeper needed to be near his birds at all times "for training and to protect them from predators".

She added: "It needs someone dedicated to live there and the disused barn is ideal.

"We do not agree with the county surveyors view that this is nothing more than a hobby."

But Coun Frank Dyson (Clitheroe) said: "I am shocked at this application. I cannot think of any other in the past that has come before this committee which has had less merit."