Travellers who flattened woodland and paved over it win right to stay on site forever as council say they are powerless to intervene

A council has said rules brought in by Labour have left it powerless to intervene in a dispute over woodland that was torn down by travellers.

Residents told the Daily Mail they were 'devastated' after Hertsmere Council said 'changes to national policy' meant 'no further action can be taken' at a site near St Albans in Hertfordshire.

The Government's Planning Inspectorate gave the travellers five years of temporary permission to stay on the land in 2024, two years after men arrived to fell the thick layer of trees which bordered Bridgefoot Cottages.

Key to the travellers' successful appeal was their claim that a mother, Theresa Lane, and her five children needed a settled base for their family to live.

An 11-year-old child, who has Down's Syndrome, was brought to the Planning Inspectorate hearing and asked questions by officials before it was argued she needed to live near a specialist school.

But the family have never been seen at the site in the two years since that hearing.

Its gates remain chained and residents claimed only to have seen single men living there as what they believed to be 'caretakers' of the site.

Because the temporary planning permission – which also told the travellers they must restore the woodland by 2029 – said only Ms Lane's family could live on the site, residents appealed to the council's enforcement team when this appeared to have been breached.

The travellers applied for retrospective planning permission which was granted for five years, until 2029, by the Government's Planning Inspectorate

The site, pictured through scaffolding from a neighbouring cottage, was previously filled with greenery

But in 2022 travellers arrived and ripped up the parcel of green belt land, which was paved over with an aggregate similar to tarmac

But in a letter sent to residents this week and shared with the Mail, Hertsmere's enforcement team said it would close the case because requirements to limit planning permission to specific persons or to a specific timeframe had been watered down by the Government.

In the letter, an enforcement officer said it was 'unlikely that conditions restricting (planning) permission to temporary or personal planning permissions would meet the condition tests, as changes to national policy mean that the need to restrict this development to being a personal and temporary permission is no longer required'.

One resident told the Mail it was 'devastating news' for their family and the residents of the cottages around the site.

They said the site was being 'used as a dumping ground' and believe it is not occupied by the family whose argument had won the temporary planning permission.

'It is very upsetting for all of us,' they added.

And they said it had been 'an absolute waste of my time' trying to fight the alleged planning breach.

They said the rules were 'not fit for purpose'.

The Daily Mail previously reported that residents had doubts over the link between the girl and the family at the planning hearing. 

One Hertsmere resident who attended the hearing previously said the child 'was not acknowledged' by the traveller family and 'did not show any indication that she knew them'.

'It felt like she was ignored by the applicant party,' they said.

Gates blocking entry to the site are chained and padlocked, while council-issued bins sit outside

And they added there had been a 'general absence of common sense' over the decision to grant temporary planning permission and said they had no doubt the family would 'produce the girl again' were there to be a further hearing.

Ms Lane also claimed to be a widow with four more sons, three of whom were adults.

A Planning Inspectorate spokesman previously said inspectors 'fully' consider evidence and legislation during appeals, adding enforcement action was a council responsibility.

Meanwhile neighbours said they had been subjected to abuse and deception from the moment their unwanted visitors arrived.

As the trees were felled in 2022, one – who, like others who spoke to this newspaper, did not want to be named fearing retaliation – said they were approached while in their own garden by men working on the site.

They were hit with a barrage of 'so many things, so many swear words', including: 'You f***ing c***, get out of the way.'

Soon after, another neighbour approached and was told they could buy the land for £450,000 should they wish.

The plot had previously been purchased by Patrick Sweeney, Theresa Lane's brother, in 2021 for £39,000.

One year to the day after being given temporary permission for a small camp near the plot's entrance, vans arrived to surface the entire site with aggregate material similar to tarmac.

Once the site was surfaced, a static caravan was positioned in the far corner, along the border of a neighbouring garden.

Images seen by the Mail showed a children's slide and trampoline yards from the caravan, with only a small fence between – children as young as six live in the cottages.

Soon after the caravan was left on the site, the cottages' residents noticed their water bills soaring – they quadrupled within months, costing them hundreds of pounds.

The 200-year-old cottages all shared a single shared water main, to which they believe the travellers had connected themselves.

Blue pipes also sprang up from the ground on the site, ready to be connected to septic tanks despite the temporary planning permission limiting them to a single mobile home and a touring caravan.

When the Mail visited the site in July after a blistering heatwave, the travellers' grass was a lush green where neighbours' lawns browned under the beating sun.

Earlier this year, the travellers submitted a new planning application for two touring caravans and two static homes to be allowed on the site.

Within that application was a reference to the site as 'grey belt', Labour's policy introduced under former housing secretary Angela Rayner which loosened the rules for building on 'poor quality' green belt land.

But the plot had been green belt for at least 45 years – until recently it was a 'beautiful haven for birds and wildlife' – and saw successive planning applications rejected over decades. 

In a statement, the Department for Housing, Communities and Local Government said: 'Local planning authorities have a wide range of enforcement powers with strong penalties for non-compliance. 

'It is for local authorities to determine what action they take against any breaches of planning control, and there are strong protections in place to protect green spaces for local people.'

A spokesman for Hertsmere Council told the Daily Mail: 'The policy is the National Planning Policy Framework following the introduction of grey belt in the December 2025 revisions.

'The applicant sought pre-application advice for removal of Conditions 2 and 3 of the temporary planning permission to allow permanent occupation of the site by anyone who meets the definition.

'An application for planning permission (26/0639/FUL) was subsequently submitted to the Council and Officers have provisionally recommended that planning permission be granted.

'But the decision has yet to be determined and a decision notice has not been issued.'