A Gypsy and Traveller family has won an appeal to keep their home, after a planning inspector ruled it no longer causes “substantial harm” to the area.

The inspector said they recognised this might cause “frustration” for others living in the area, after only temporary permission had been given before, but said the situation had changed.

Ricky Crotty had applied for permission to keep a caravan, two touring caravans and a separate amenity building on land off Cambridge Road, in Wimpole.

Temporary permission had been granted by a planning inspector in 2015 to allow the family to stay at the site until February 2017.

They said the temporary permission was justified to allow alternative Gypsy and Traveller pitches to become available.

In September last year, South Cambridgeshire District Council refused the latest application to keep the caravans on the site, claiming the “continued unauthorised” use of the land by the family was causing “substantial harm to the character and appearance of the area”.

However, a new planning inspector has overturned this decision. The inspector said they believed the caravans had a “very limited” visual impact on the area.

They recognised that this view differed from that of the previous inspector, but said the situation had changed, including that the bushes on the boundary of the site had grown higher.

The inspector also said the district council could not demonstrate an adequate supply of Gypsy and Traveller sites to meet the “substantial” level of unmet need in the area.

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They said the family had ongoing health and educational needs that are met locally and said they had shown a “clear need for their residential occupation of the site”.

The planning inspector said: “I recognise that this decision will cause frustration to the local community as the previous inspector found that the substantial harm caused only justified a limited period permission of two years, yet the residential use still remains.

“Nevertheless, it is clear to me that the circumstances on the site have changed materially in the intervening period, albeit unauthorised, coupled with the different policy basis and lack of any reasonable alternative sites being available now.”