THEY live on the same road and now they have something else in common, they've lost a planning appeal.

In May last year Wiltshire Council made an enforcement notice against Joleen Phelps for changes she had made to farmland at Freckles Farm in Brinkworth Road, Wootton Bassett.

Mrs Phelps had been instructed to stop importing waste materials on to the farm and to remove any that had already been imported. And she was ordered to stop the unauthorised use of scaffolding equipment and to remove the mobile homes on the site that were being used as residences.

She appealed against the enforcement notice, but inspector Simon Hand found in favour of the council.

He said: “There is no dispute the mobile homes have been put on the land nor that they are lived in so there can be no success on the grounds there has been no breach of planning control.

“Mrs Phelps used to run a a farm on the land but this has now been significantly run down due to ill-health.

"I saw on my site visit much of the pasture was given over to the storage of waste. No evidence of any lawful activity on the land has been provided.”

Mr Hand said the mobile homes were clearly visible and “look out of place and harm the character and appearance of the countryside”.

The inspector's report says there was no dispute that the farm had been used for scaffolding storage and the waste being imported was “builders’ rubble which had been spread over a field toward the rear of the site, and there is the importation of a large amount of wood stored in large piles in another field.

No reason was provided as to why permission should be granted for the importation and storage of builders’ rubble.”

Following the decision, the farm’s owners have up to a year to comply with all the items in the enforcement notice.

Further up Brinkworth Road, at Baynards Ash Farm, Liz Eastgate and her husband had appealed against the refusal of consent for plans for an extension on the side of the Grade II listed main farmhouse, which dates back to at least 1810.

The council’s planners had decided against giving permission on the grounds a modern extension would “harm the significance of the designated heritage asset due to its positioning, design and detail, it is considered to be an incongruous addition on to a listed dwelling”.

The decision by inspector Patrick Whelan was to uphold that refusal.

He wrote: “I acknowledge the farmhouse is set back from the road, however the extension and its insensitive from would be clearly visible.

"A condition to plant screening along the boundary may diminish its conspicuousness but it would not undo the harm to the listed building, which has been safeguarded for its inherent architectural and historic interest, whether or not public views of it can be gained.”

The inspector added: “I understand the extension has been proposed on this side of the farmhouse in preference to developing the other side, which the appellants consider more sensitive.

"Not causing harm to one side of the building does not justify harm on this side.”

Anyone who disagrees with an inspector’s ruling, can make a further appeal to the High Court.