CAMPAIGNERS were celebrating after a controversial bid to set up a green waste composting site near their homes was withdrawn.

Countrystyle Composting Ltd had applied to Kent County Council for the facility at Greenway Court, between Hollingbourne and Harrietsham.

Protestors who had staged a long-running battle against the plans they claimed could turn the protected countryside into the 'dustbin of Kent'.

The company hoped to make compost out of green waste trucked in from areas such as Ashford and Maidstone, on 17 hectares of farmland.

Ron Heaney, one of the protest group leaders, said: "We are overjoyed at the news. Initially there was a sense of disbelief but people really are over the moon."

Countrystyle Composting withdrew the application because of a restrictive covenant placed on the land when it was sold by the Leeds Castle estate to the Batchelor farming family in 1990.

Trevor Heathcote, the company's managing director said he was "very disappointed" to have to withdraw the application.

"However, at the end of the day if there is a covenant like this on the land then it makes it very difficult to proceed," he said.

But while Mr Heathcote effectively ruled out any chance of submitting a fresh planning application on Greenway Court he said his company remained committed to finding another rural site for the waste plant.