A GYPSY couple have won the right to take their fight to live in a caravan at Upton Warren to the Court of Appeal.

Leonard and Kathleen Butler have been given the go-ahead to appeal a High Court decision that threatened their home at Bywater Farm where they had lived without authorisation since December 2005.

Last year a High Court judge backed Wychavon District Council's claim that a Government planning inspector had been wrong to grant a temporary five-year planning permission for them to live there.

However, that will be appealed now that Lady Justice Smith said the Butler's case was "arguable" at a hearing yesterday.

The court heard that Wychavon District Council had refused the Butlers planning permission to keep the caravan in February 2006, but a Government planning inspector allowed their appeal a year later granting a temporary five-year permission until an alternative site became available.

The council challenged that decision claiming the inspector adopted an unlawful approach to what constituted "very special circumstances" justifying what would otherwise be inappropriate development in a Green Belt area.

The inspector had found the lack of alternative gypsy sites in the area, the general need for such sites, and developing Government policy favourable to travellers outweighed Green Belt concerns.

Granting the Butlers permission to appeal Lady Justice Smith said: "I am doubtful about the correctness of these submissions, however I have come to the conclusion that it is clearly arguable. If the inspector's approach was permissible, it may be that the court would uphold the inspector's conclusion."

She added the Court of Appeal should also consider whether the "very special circumstances" required to justify planning permission in the Green Belt must be "every bit as special" for temporary permissions as for permanent ones.

"For these reasons, albeit with some hesitation, I grant permission," she said.