​Travellers have been told they can stay on an illegal gipsy site in Newent for the next two years.

A government inspector has given them until January 2012 to quit the controversial six-acre site at Southend Lane which they moved onto during the Whitsun Bank Holiday in May.

But he has banned the travellers from doing any more work and say they must rip up the hardstanding and restore the field to agricultural land before they go.

Newent county councillor Len Lawton said: "I do not see this as a victory for anybody.

 "I think it is a sad result for everybody involved. Residents will continue to be put through some form of misery and the travellers will still need to find a new home at the end of it."

Residents have been fighting plans ever since a dozen families arrived and started transforming the field next to their upmarket homes into a permanent gypsy site.

The travelleers laid a hard surface, dug a cesspit and created 12 separate plots before the council managed to serve a stop notice preventing them doing any more work on the land which is owned by the travellers.

The travellers put in a planning application to create a building on each pitch and argued that they have nowhere else to go because there is a shortage of official giypsy sites in the area.

But at a public inquiry held in Newent before Christmas the district council argued that Southend Lane was unsuitable. They said the travellers could go to Cinderford and other potential sites being earmarked across the Forest.

The inspector's decision, which has been held up in the post due to bad weather, is unlikely to please the travellers or the residents and both have been told they will have to fund their own costs.