POLICE officers made sure the peace was kept as a council committee made recommendations on a bitter planning dispute, yesterday.

Farmer Janet Sewell and her supporters and members of the Windmill Residents’ Action Group were seated apart and asked to leave through separate doors at Durham County Council’s Area Planning Committee meeting, in Spennymoor.

The committee met to make a recommendation on whether to remove or amend planning permission for three barns at Councillor Sewell’s Mill House farm, in Windmill, near Bishop Auckland.

Stephen Reed, the council’s planning development manager, gave a presentation on which included six options for members to consider for the two existing barns - approved by the former Teesdale District Council in 2006 and 2008 – and one that was granted approval by Durham County Council in 2010 but has never been built.

Options included everything from doing nothing to moving the barns to another part of the farm and pulling them down altogether.

Mr Reed recommended imposing planning conditions for the existing barns and revoking permission for the third.

The committee heard from Martin Clark and Barbara Nicholson, clerk and chairman of Evenwood and Barony Parish Council, residents’ action group member Robert Potts, and Andrew Cuthbertson, of NFU, who spoke on behalf of Mrs Sewell.

Mr Clark and Mrs Nicholson stressed the parish council had supported the planning applications while Mr Cuthbertson said the planning issues were “of the council’s making and nothing to do with anything Mill House Farm have done”.

Meanwhile Mr Potts urged the council to revoke all three applications to put an end to the decade-long dispute.

Several councillors said the committee had to find “a way forward” and agreed with the officer’s proposal.

However, Councillor Andrea Patterson said she was concerned about some “impractical” conditions and would prefer no action to be taken.

The majority of councillors voted in favour of the officer’s recommendation which will now be considered by the council’s head of planning and assets, who will make the final decision.