A SALISBURY estate agent has lost his battle develop a campsite at Berwick St James but neighbours are still worried that camping rallies could be held there throughout the year.

William Grant, managing director of Fox Grant, applied for planning permission for a touring caravan and camping site and for retrospective permission for work already done, including a shower and toilet block, cess pit and electric hook up points at the site on Berwick Road.

Wiltshire Council received more than 30 letters of objection, as well as two petitions and both Berwick St James Parish Meeting and Winterbourne Stoke Parish Council were against the plan.

Residents turned up in force to voice their complaints at a meeting of Wiltshire Council’s southern area planning committee on Thursday.

Local councillor Ian West said: “I have never known in my 19 years as a councillor such strong opposition to a planning application. What has angered and incensed most people is that since the retrospective application was submitted the site work has continued as if the application was a foregone conclusion.”

Mr Grant told the committee he has lived in the area all his life, cares passionately about how the site is developed and would not do anything to the detriment of the surrounding countryside.

He said he has been using the site as a campsite for the last year and had not received any objections until he applied for planning permission. “I want to reassure everyone that I don’t have a desire to anything that is detrimental to our countryside.”

The committee voted nine to two in favour of refusal on the grounds of the visual impact and impact on conservation.

But residents are still concerned that Mr Grant can hold up to 28 rally events a year, each lasting up to five days. Events, including plans for a Summer Solstice camping rally in June, are being advertised on his website.