TOUGH new action is being considered to solve a gipsy site problem after five years.

The new action to force gipsy families to quit the two acre Twin Oaks site in Evesham Road, is being considered by Wychavon District councillors.

But the gipsies say they will continue their battle against the planners in order to continue to settle there.

Planning applications rejected by Wychavon District Council, failed appeals to the Planning Inspectorate and High Court action that has gone against them, have all been ignored by the families of Samantha Smith, Julie Smith and Peter Greenwood, who have appealed against the latest refusal by the council.

Now, the council on Tuesday, August 6, is being asked by its development control committee, a move endorsed by the Board on Tuesday (July 23), to go back to the High Court and, as a separate issue, seek a compulsory purchase order on the land.

Samantha, aged 33, and John Smith, aged 31, with their children Ellen-Marie, aged 12, and Tina, aged six, have lived on the privately owned site for the past five years, and Mr Smith explained: "We used to move from lay-by to lay-by and town to town. I can't read or write but in this day and age I want our children to have a decent education and for that we need to be settled down, and that is why we bought this land."

He said: "We have never asked the council for anything, except planning permission, and if they do turn us off here someone has got to find somewhere for us to go, because we won't be allowed to live on the side of the road.

"We don't want a house. We are Romany gipsies and want to live the way we are. We are English, but no-one seems to want to help us, while at the same time they are talking of providing for hundreds of asylum seekers at Throckmorton."

He claimed: "We have had five years of stress and hassle, all because we just want to live quietly here and do the best we can for our children."

Agents for the families dealing with the appeal for a 10 year temporary consent for three mobile homes for three gipsy families and retention of hardstandings, say: "Their personal circumstances and needs, as well as the consequences of refusal in the absence of suitable alternative sites being available, would be out of all proportion to any purported harm to planning policy."