People are "fed up to the back teeth" with the preferential treatment given to planning applications for gipsy and traveller sites.

The anger and frustration felt by people over a "two-tier planning system" was spelt out in Parliament by MP Gordon Henderson.

He was speaking during a parliamentary debate on unauthorised gipsy encampments and developments in the countryside.

During the debate, he repeated his complaint that advice issued by the last Labour government to local authorities under Circular 01/06 explicitly gave preferential treatment to gipsies and travellers.

Mr Henderson used the ongoing saga of the field opposite the crematorium in Sheppey Way, Bobbing, to highlight the "idiotic contradiction" of the two-tier planning system.

He said an application for a bungalow was turned down because the development would be detrimental to "an important countryside gap".

However, 18 months later officers recommended approval for a planning application for a static caravan and touring caravan in the same field on the grounds that it would not be detrimental to the countryside gap.

Mr Henderson said: "I did emphasise that this idiotic contradiction was not a reflection on Swale Borough Council officers but on the guidance they received from the then government."

He said the contradiction "infuriated" residents.

"People go through the correct procedures to submit planning applications and then somebody else comes along and gets approval," he said.

Mr Henderson stressed his constituents did not object to gipsy and traveller sites per se.

"They believe that planning applications for those sites should be treated in exactly the same way as any applications from the settled community," he said.

He added: "This is not about politics, it is about fairness. Our local settled community deserve somebody to represent them too, and that is what I am trying to do. Settled people are not prejudiced against gipsies, they just want everybody to be treated the same way where planning regulations are concerned.

"If travellers want to put down roots, then let them buy plots at building land prices and apply for planning permission.

"It is quite wrong that some travellers abuse the system by buying up non-development land and installing static caravans on it without planning consent in the certain knowledge that nobody will evict them."

Mr Henderson has welcomed the government's plans to scrap Circular 01/06, which he described as the "root cause" of many of the problems.

He said: "Local people are rightly outraged that Swale Borough Council seem powerless to take action against these unauthorised sites, whilst seeing members of the settled community who disobey planning laws slapped down immediately."

However, chairman of the UK Gypsy Council Joseph Jones said the 'rot' had been started by the Conservative government in 1994.

He said: "We are working within the boundaries of the law as it stands. It is not our fault - it is the fault of borough councils, county councils and the government and we are getting blamed for their failure."

The MP was accused by the chairman of the UK Gypsy Council of talking "a load of twaddle" and making political capital.

Joseph Jones, who was born and bred in Swale, said the scrapping of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act in 1994 by the then Tory government had started the rot, creating the so-called two-tier planning system.

"After 1994, all local councils were asked to identify suitable land for gipsy and traveller occupation and since then every single one has failed to do that," said Mr Jones.

Mr Jones, from Canterbury, said the gipsy/traveller population was as much a part of the community as anyone else - and had been for centuries.

"We have been here for more than 500 years," he said. "Our men fought in two world wards and other military campaigns. We are no different from anyone else.

"If Gordon Henderson wants to segregate us from the rest of society, that's fine, but segregate us where we want to live, not where they think we should live, like on rubbish tips."