A GOVERNMENT inspector has delivered a blow to a council embroiled in a bizarre saga over a grass airstrip.

Hambleton District Council, which has been repeatedly condemned for losing planning control over Bagby Airfield, near Thirsk - a matter that has created bitter divisions in nearby villages - has had its latest enforcement actions rejected following a public inquiry and been ordered to pay undisclosed costs to its owner, lawyer Martin Scott.

Campaigners against the airfield said the decision reflected the authority's "incompetence", while those backing the airfield said it was time the council, which has previously been criticised for spending large sums of taxpayers' money on battling the airfield, stopped wasting the public purse.

The council served the airfield with enforcement actions - claiming part of a taxiway had been widened by 90cm and that two 13,000-litre fuel tanks attached to agricultural trailers should be removed – in 2014.

Mr Scott launched an appeal against the actions, triggering the fourth public inquiry in six years over the site.

A group of residents from Bagby and Thirkleby villages have pressed the council to take action over flights and noise from the airfield since plans were unveiled to develop the enterprise in 2008.

Recent years have seen the authority's actions lead to the Yorkshire Air Ambulance being forced to stop using the airfield as its North Yorkshire base, members of Thirkleby Parish Council resigning en masse and Hambleton being ordered by an ombudsman to apologise and pay residents damages for causing years of distress by failing to control planning.

Last month, the Information Commissioner ruled the council was wrong to withhold information from campaign group Action4Refusal.

Following a three-day hearing in January, planning inspector John Murray quashed the authority's latest attempt to exert control - a bid to remove the revenue-generating fuel tanks - concluding they were “not buildings”.

He also overturned an order to remove a strip of Tarmac from a taxiway, after finding confusion surrounded how it had been measured and that the enforcement plan did not include any measurements or dimensions.

The inquiry report stated a Hambleton planning officer could “not explain” how the area alleged to have been widened was calculated and was not aware of any visit to the site, or any file notes from the visit. It said “on balance of probability” there had not been a visit to the site to measure the runway.

The report stated it remained unproven the taxiway had been widened, adding: “The process by which the notice plan was drawn up is somewhat mysterious.”

Mr Scott said it was time to draw a line under the issue. He said: “Ten years of fighting appeal after appeal has cost an unbelievable amount of money.”

Mr Scott said he had submitted a proposal to Hambleton to demolish and replace some older buildings on the site and had pledged to cap the number of flights coming into the airfield to "historic levels of about 9,000 a year", a figure disputed by Action4Refusal.

“I am offering to cap movements; the locals are getting control in terms of overall movements at the airfield. I’m hoping that brings the whole saga to an end,” he said.

A Hambleton spokeswoman said it was yet to scrutinise the inquiry decision and could not comment.

A spokesman for campaign group Action4Refusal said residents would "have to pay for the incompetence of Hambleton".

He said: “This decision came as no surprise to the residents because of the way it was incompetently handled by Hambleton.

“It was absurd really. Even if the council had done it properly, the inspector felt the issues were a very small matter. The fact that they don’t even know who was doing the site visits means they were not committed to this process.

"Hambleton lost planning control of the airfield and we’ve had to pay for all the enforcement notices with our money. And we still haven’t succeeded in bringing the airfield under control.”