PLANS to use a field as a permanent site for travelling showmen have provoked a deluge of objections.

The proposals would see 28 pitches and a series of access roads built in a field on Pool Lane, in Nun Monkton, between Harrogate and York.

If the plans are approved, the field would be transformed into a permanent base where the travellers could store, maintain and repair their equipment and station their caravans when they are not on the road.

The Council for the Protection of Rural England said the plans should be refused, and more than 120 individual letters of objection have been sent to Harrogate Borough Council.

A petition containing 629 signatures has also been sent to the council.

Nun Monkton Parish Council said the proposals went against both North Yorkshire County Council and Harrogate Borough Council policies and called for planning permission to be refused.

The parish council also said that screening of the site would be impossible, and it would change the character and appearance of the area.

Parish councils in neighbouring Green Hammerton and Kirk Hammerton supported that view.

Planning officer Neville Watson has strongly recommended that the plans should be refused.

"The site would be used throughout the year, but predominantly in the winter months, at a time when screening would be at its least effective," he said. "The proposal is not of a rural nature or character and would cover a substantial area of open grassland."

Harrogate Borough councillors will discuss the plans on Tuesday.