CONTROVERSIAL plans to build a permanent gipsy camp near a picturesque Ribble Valley village will be the subject of a public inquiry.

Council workmen moved in several months ago after travellers set up an illegal camp on land near Stocks Lane in Rimington. Mounds of earth and a concrete base were flattened by bulldozers and the area was levelled and grassed over.

An application for planning permission for the site was refused by Ribble Valley, backed by County Hall.

The National Gipsy Council supported the campaign to have a permanent camp at the isolated farmland. But the application was thrown out by Ribble Valley Council because the camp is on open land, near an area of outstanding natural beauty.

The council also received several complaints from local residents worried about the impact of the camp on the area.

Gipsies who lived on the site appealed to the Department of the Environment against the decision to move them off the land.

Planning chiefs are not sure who has lodged the appeal because the address given was a vacant caravan near the cleared encampment.

The council is also taking legal action to have the empty caravan towed away.

But the Government inquiry is set to go ahead this September in Clitheroe council chamber.

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