Council bans farmer from living in mobile home on her own land... despite allowing gypsy camp just miles away

Tina Johnston

Tina Johnston has until tomorrow to leave the mobile home she has lived in for five years or she will be fined £20,000

A council has evicted an organic farmer from a mobile home on her land - despite allowing more than 50 gypsies to set up camp on her doorstep.

Tina Johnston, 42, has lived on the 30-acre plot since 2004 growing boxes of fruit and vegetables which she sells to the local community.

But despite paying council tax, the ecologist and her nine-year-old daughter Grace have been ordered to leave the site following years of planning feuds.

Tina was told her self-sufficient farm is on greenbelt land and that she has no right to sleep there.

But planning officials were accused of double standards after a 55-strong group of travellers were allowed to stay on an illegal site in Minety, less than 20 miles away.

The gypsies set up dozens of caravans at the picturesque site last year and applied for retrospective planning permission to stay.

Their application was turned down but they appealed the decision and the case went before a public inquiry - which ruled in their favour.

Tina and Grace have until tomorrow to leave their mobile home or face a £20,000 fine.

She will now be forced to sell her business to cover the £10,000 legal fees she has already spent fighting her case.

Tina said: 'I work 16 hours a day on the land, with organic vegetables which I sell in boxes, and beef cows, chickens and it's a really good self-sufficient farm.

'I'm a committed ecologist and was building this up to be a very green business - I even did some of the veg boxes with horse-drawn deliveries.

'I've paid council tax all the time I've been here, which is five years, but it just seems someone somewhere wants me out.

Tina Johnston

'Human rights tragedy': Tina was told her self-sufficient farm, in Wiltshire, is on greenbelt land and that she has no right to sleep there

'My barrister told me that if I sold the land to gypsies, they would be allowed to live there.

'Maybe I should, and then ask the gypsies if I could move back in.'

She added: 'The only option for me is to pay up because I can't pay £10,000 costs.

'If I stuck it out and refused to move, I'd be given a £20,000 fine. I have no choice but to give up now - I'm so upset.'

Tina and Grace moved into the mobile home in 2004 in a bid to work the land and make a living from its crop.

At the outset, planning bosses at Wiltshire Council told her they had no problem with the mobile home, provided she slept elsewhere.

She has spent the last five years appealing against the decision without success, at a cost of around £10,000.

Tina won the backing of dozens of locals and her local parish council, and was popular among the community.

But last week, Wiltshire Council ruled that Tina and Grace had to leave their farm in Box, near Chippenham.

Last year a 55-strong group of gypsies were allowed to stay on their illegal site 30 minutes down the road in Minety.

A public inquiry ruled that to move the travellers would be a breach of human rights.

But MP for North Wiltshire, James Gray, yesterday branded the decision to evict Tina the real 'human rights tragedy'.

He said: 'Just a few miles away in the same district, gypsy families are allowed to do exactly what this lady wants to do - in fact, she has a better case becasue she is working the land she wants to live on.

'During the saga of the Minety gypsies, this was the case I raised as evidence that there was one rule for one group and another for the rest.

'This case is both peculiar and outrageous.

'I have no doubt that if she declared herself a Romany, she'd be allowed to stay there, but becasue she's admitted she has no such link, she is being forced out.

'The Minety gypsies, for instance, won in the end because they'd been there long enough for the ruling to be that their human rights would be affected by being forced to move.'

Tina now faces the prospect of having to sell her business and move into a 25ft horsebox on non-greenbelt land nearby.

MP James Gray added: 'Here is a farmer forced to live in a horse box while she sells her land and moves away. It beggars belief.'

A spokesman for Wiltshire Council said: 'The land in question is green belt land and as such has stringent planning policies attached to it.

'Our countryside needs to be protected as a resource for future generations and there was no overriding reason why development should be allowed in this case.'



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