The future of a large traveller site compared to being Kent's own version of the infamous Dale Farm is being decided at a planning inquiry.

Maidstone Borough Council issued enforcement notices on the site in Headcorn in August 2018, but the caravans' occupants have appealed the notices and countered with a raft of retrospective planning applications, many of which the council has refused to determine.

Now a government inspector will consider a total of 17 appeals at the inquiry which is being held in Maidstone Town Hall this week.

The site is to the rear of The Meadows, off Lenham Road.

Adjacent to the Fiddlers Green Stud, it borders Headcorn, Ulcombe and Boughton Malherbe parishes.

Headcorn Parish Council, in its response to one of the applications for the site, said: "We are dismayed at what is becoming a farcical situation with regards to these traveller settlements in our community.

"We are concerned over the complicated and protracted process of application, permission, refusal, enforcement that they face on a daily basis."

The council response added: "Headcorn Parish Council has been challenging the development on this site, in its various guises, since the year 2000, and we should not be in this situation."

The parish council said there was a disproportionate number of traveller sites in the village, far exceeding the UK average.

But national statistics show that there is a disproportionate number of traveller sites in the borough of Maidstone.

The Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government carries out a count of traveller sites across the country twice a year.

The last date for which figures are available was June 2020.

The count found that Maidstone had the highest number of traveller caravans of any authority in the country - 727 caravans. The next highest was Central Bedfordshire with 639 vans and then South Cambridgeshire with 582.

The survey found there were many local authorities which had no gypsy or traveller sites at all.

The planning inquiry started on Monday and is expected to run until at least Friday, and possibly into next week too.

The lead case is an appeal by James Doran.

Other site residents making appeals are Myles Smith, Margaret O'Brien, Thomas O'Brien, Nicole Skarlett, Charlene Hogan, Lisa Murphy and Michael Murphy, according to documents.

'The outcome will be of massive significance to the village'

There are also appeals from Mark Harris, Simon Doherty, Bonnie Boswell, Miles Doran, Agnes Mangan, Patrick Hanrahan, Josaphine Cash and Sandra Hanrahan.

All of the travellers are being represented by Dr Angus Murdoch, a chartered town planner from Somerset, who specialises in representing gypsy communities.

The inquiry is open to the public and starts at 10am.

One member of the audience at the inquiry earlier this week said: "This site is our Dale Farm. The outcome will be of massive significance to the village."

The reference number for the lead case is: APP/U2235/C/18/3210879