A parish council is appealing against a controversial decision to allow one of England’s largest traveller sites near a tiny village.

Swale Borough Council’s planning committee gave the green light to increase the number of caravans permitted at Brotherhood Wood, off the A2 near Dunkirk, from 42 to 87 in April.

The number of pitches at the site has also increased from 29 to 40.

It went ahead despite allegations that Brotherhood Wood already has too many residents, and amid investigations into claims that many are not travellers or gypsies, but migrant workers from Eastern Europe who are not permitted to live there, which the site owners deny.

In an open letter to Swale’s cabinet member for planning, Cllr Gerry Lewin, Dunkirk Parish Council’s chairman Jeff Tutt is now asking Swale to reconsider, saying it has the power to revoke permission under the Town and Country Planning Act.

Calling the decision to allow the site to grow “seriously perverse”, the letter says the borough council “completely ignored the many and varied material considerations that were put forward for refusal”.

Concerns were also raised that, under the new layout, some families could have a space smaller than the minimum size of a one-bedroom flat to live in, and that Kent Police usually recommend that traveller sites have no more than 15 pitches.

It is also feared that a larger number of pitches at Brotherhood Wood could be used as grounds to refuse permission for gypsies and travellers to reside in other places.

A spokesman for Swale Borough Council said that although potential planning breaches are still being investigated, the authority is not considering revoking permission.

It has argued that refusing an application without sound planning reasons could leave it open to an expensive appeal process.

Replying to the letter, director of regeneration Emma Wiggins said: “I cannot agree with your position that it was unreasonable for the experienced and well advised Planning Committee to determine the application in the way that it was advised to do.

“Considering the application on its merits, it was resolved to permit the application. This decision was made by the Committee, who were fully alive to the local opposition.

“There would seem to be no merit in seeking to revoke the permission granted by the Committee in such circumstances in the absence of any new material considerations having come to light.