Travellers with children as young as 13 months old who moved onto land in Writtle in an act of desperation to ‘escape the threat of guns and machetes’ have been given permission to stay while planning appeals are heard.

The failed application from Chelmsford City Council to immediately evict them means the family is expected to be able stay on land, near Hylands Park just off of the A414 Ongar Road, for at least a year.

The city council has had court costs paid for.

Writtle parish chairman Chris Hibbitt said: “It looks like we are going to have them for another 12 months.”

“We are incredibly disappointed. I said at the start the law is crazy.

“But it just seems unbelivable that a city council can say or make decisions on planning and can’t have the means to do anything about it.

“We still believe the law doesn’t help the parishes and villages maintain their appearance.”

Although the judge was not prepared to grant an immediate eviction order, the judge accepted a formal undertaking from the travellers that in the event their ongoing planning appeal against refusal is turned down, they will move.

However this could take around a year for a decision to  be made.

The city council had appealed to the High Court to evict the travellers after they had moved onto the land at the end of October.

Traveller Jason Lee had previously told the High Court that he believed he was able to develop the land off Highwood Road because of an appeal issued immediately after the refusal of an earlier planning application.

The land, near Hylands Park just off of the A414 Ongar Road, had earlier been sold for £18,000, with an added overage clause in case of an uplift in the value of the land, split between three of the travellers.

They say they bought the land after wanting somewhere safe to live – they had previously been living in a hotel after moving away from Twin Oaks in Braintree due to concerns about the level of violence there.

An application was put in earlier last year to build hardstandings for a four-pitch gypsy site, which was rejected in September 2018 by Chelmsford City Council because it would “erode the open character of the countryside” and would represent “urban encroachment into the Green Belt”.

But work to make pitches for several caravans started at 6.45am on Saturday, October 27.

The family say they do not have any serious options of places to go if they were evicted ahead of an appeal, with the decision to be made by the planning inspector.