A Moray traveller family has been granted permission to take up permanent residence at the plot of land they have stayed for the last six years.
George Stewart bought the site at Doohill, near Lhanbryde, in 2010 and lives there with his wife, sons, daughters and 19 grandchildren in caravans.
However, they made their home there without the permission of Moray Council and have been living with the threat of eviction.
Yesterday, Mr and Mrs Stewart attended a meeting of the local authority’s planning and regulatory services committee to learn their fate.
Councillors heard that an application for the Stewart family to take on the land on a full-time basis had received no objections.
And after learning that the family would have nowhere else to go were they to be forced from the land, members unanimously agreed to allow them to remain at Doohill.
After the meeting, a pleased Mr Stewart said he was looking forward to telling his younger family members the good news.
He said: “I’m thankful nobody said anything to cause us any problems.
“Even though the planning officers had recommended we get the permission, I wasn’t counting my chickens before they hatched.
“Now we can relax a bit, we appreciate what has happened at the meeting.
“I might travel a few times throughout the year, but there will always be family at Doohill to look after it and keep it tidy.”
Moray Council convener Allan Wright questioned whether the family would now pay council tax.
But Mr Stewart advised that he and his relatives had been paying the levy for the past four years.
A report prepared by council planning officers said that landscaping along the site’s western and northern boundaries had mitigated against any negative visual impact.
In 2011, Moray Council rejected the Stewart family’s retrospective application to stay there, a decision later backed by the Scottish Government.
The family faced being evicted by the local authority, but were eventually given a three-year reprieve by the government on the basis there was nowhere else for them to go.
Mr Stewart said the family’s life had been “put on hold” as they endured “years of hell”.
He now hopes to settle down and live out his remaining years at the camp.
