A group of travellers have been allowed to stay at the home they set up in the Black Country eight years ago after council bosses withdrew legal action forcing them out.

Eleven families who made their home on the Bluebird trading estate in Park Village, Wolverhampton, had been told to remove their five chalets and six mobile homes after losing a retrospective bid for planning permission to stay.

The travellers, who legally own the site in Bridge Street, had invested in making it suitable to live on.

But the council had wanted it to remain available for business use and said that it was contaminated from its previous use as a scrapyard.

Site owner John McCarthy had lodged an appeal with the Planning Inspectorate but has now withdrawn it after coming to an agreement with Wolverhampton City Council.

The 55-year-old said: “The council agreed that we can stay so I don’t need to continue the appeal.

“All the tenants are very happy and grateful.”

Heath Town councillor Milkinder Jaspal, who had supported Mr McCarthy in his bid to stay, said: “This site has been well kept and by being used in this way it has improved the area.

“It really did not make sense for the council to fight this when everyone was happy for the families to stay.”

Mr McCarthy had been willing to take the fight as far as the European Court of Human Rights if necessary.

A battle over the site has been going on since 2002, when planning permission was first refused to use it for mobile homes. Two further retrospective planning applications have been turned down, while a stop notice was issued in November, 2002, ordering chalet building work to stop.

In Wombourne more than 600 residents are fighting plans for a permanent gipsy pitch and utility block on land they own at Poolhouse Nurseries, Pool House Road.

By Daniel Wainwright