A Stockton company has applied for planning permission to change land to a private gypsy and traveller pitch.

Stokesley Tractors Ltd has submitted two plans in parallel to Stockton Council concerning land at Darlington Road, Elton. One asks to consent to change the land to a private gypsy and traveller pitch, the other to change it to residential.

Both propose to keep a property called Little Meadows. Whether this is a building or a caravan has been discussed with a council planning enforcement contractor, says a letter to the authority from the developer’s agent Ward Hadaway.

“STL may want to test whether Little Meadows is a building in due course,” the letter adds.

The applicant says the site has been used for many years as a gypsy pitch. Planning permission was granted in the 1990s to use it as a gypsy caravan site until the previous owners left, says the agent.

It tells how the current building, which replaced a static caravan, was listed on a property website as a three-bedroom detached bungalow when it went on the market. Stokesley Tractors says it bought the property in January 2022.

The company says an employee moved into Little Meadows in January 2023 with his family including three children, and kept it tidy and well maintained. It says the planning application to change the land to residential was intended to “regularise the current position” on previously developed land, said to have been occupied once by a petrol station then a road construction company compound.

It states: “Development on the site has existed for many years and that which is there now integrates acceptably into the character and appearance of the area. Use of Little Meadows as a dwelling provides a home to a family.”

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A letter with the traveller pitch application says: “Regularising the use of Little Meadows as a private gyspy and traveller site would make a positive contribution to the deliverable supply of pitches within the borough.

“The site is large enough to provide for adequate on site facilities for parking and storage. This is evidenced by it having been used for many years as a gypsy pitch.

“The proposed development reflects the scale of and does not dominate the nearest settled community.”