A decision on a potential landmark ruling on saving land from housing development has been delayed.

Bunyards Farm at Allington, near Maidstone, is earmarked for 435 houses.

But people living nearby claim they have been accustomed to using it as common land for decades.

Campaigners from the Medway Ecological Riverine Link (MERLIN) say it is the last piece of undeveloped land in the area and have applied for village green status for the 15 hectares north of Beaver Road.

If successful, it would be protected from any future development.

The claim is being contested by the landowner, the Andrew Cheale Will Trust and the developer BDW Trading Ltd.

They contend there was some use of the land for grazing and haymaking in the years after it ceased to be a working farm in 1998.

Both sides gave evidence to a public inquiry held at Sessions House, the HQ of Kent County Council, in March.

MERLIN spokesman Chris Passmore, who is also a county councillor, said: “We’ve just been told that the matter is still with the inspector.

“She is away for most of the summer so we’re expecting it no later than the end of July.”

A formal decision will then have to be ratified by the Regulation Committee Member Panel, possibly in the autumn.

It has not been made clear what is causing the delay to the decision.

Kent County Council, which determines village green applications, says that under the Commons Act 2006, anyone may apply to the authority for land to be registered as a town or village green to protect it from development.

The rules state: “But in order for land to qualify for registration it must be shown that ‘a significant number of the inhabitants of any locality, or of any neighbourhood within a locality, have indulged as of right in lawful sports and pastimes on the land for a period of at least 20 years’.

“For use of the land to have been ‘as of right’, it must have taken place without any force, secrecy or permission.”