A FAMILY living next door to an unlawful gipsy site whichshould have been cleared last year claim the district council has ignored their human rights.

When Julie Irons and her family built their dream house in Hamlet Hill, Roydon, in 2004, the field next door to them was just a patch of grass.

Since that time it has become a muddy dirt track, filled with broken cars, shabby caravans and rubbish.

Neighbours reported the site to the council once they noticed that a caravan had been moved on and sheds had been built.

And after much wrangling, the case eventually came before the Planning Inspectorate, who ordered owner Joe Smith to demolish the buildings and remove the caravan by October 2008.

But to their horror, the district council decided not to pursue the order, and the caravans remain today.

Mrs Irons said: “When we wanted to put up a summer house on our land they dragged us through the planning applications, but when he ruins our lives – where is the council then?

“He says we’re objecting because he’s a gipsy and it’s racist, but I’d feel the same way if anyone was acting that way. We worked so hard to build this place and paid taxes all the time – where are our human rights?”

Farmer David McClellan owns the land around the Ash View site and said the occupants had polluted his land, costing him hundreds of pounds.

He said: “He’s built up the land with waste. It used to be a slope and I used to bring it up with the parish council but no-one wanted to know.

“They’ve put in a septic tank and the water overflows on to my land, nothing grows there and it’s costing me money. We’ve already had dogs in the fields worrying stock. How much more of our land will they destroy?

"We’ve been farming here for three generations and we don’t want to sell up because of this.”

A spokeswoman for Epping Forest District council said: “Officers decided the best tactic in dealing with the matter was to wait out the six month window for the applicant to appeal.

“However, a matter of days before the six month period expired the applicant made his appeal, creating the situation Officers had hoped to avoid. In the circumstances, Officers have decided to defer any decision on prosecution until the appeal is decided.”