The owner of the site at Beers Yard in Sandwich has revealed plans for eco-holiday lodges which would eliminate problems with fly-tipping.

Alan Smith, who runs Sandwich Leisure Holiday Park, has proposed building a number of apartments on the land, with extra tree planting, a small car park, a pond and pedestrian and cycle links to The Butts.

Harps Meadow, the former transport yard, has become a dumping ground for rubbish and criticised as an eyesore. The proposal to rejuvenate the area is only in the first stages as a pre-planning application has already been refused by Dover District Council.

The district council says it is in conflict with planning policies and the site owner should consider alternatives.

A spokesman added: “The council provides pre-application advice to assist applicants in understanding what opportunities exist for any particular site.

“Sometimes, the plans proposed conflict with the council’s planning policies, and in such cases we would advise accordingly.

“In such cases, the landowner could consider alternative options and we are happy to assist where required.”

John Elvidge, Mr Smith’s planning consultant said: “Simply put, it boils down to whether the economic, social and environmental benefits of turning this despoiled site into an attractively landscaped, high quality lodge development, outweighs any perceived impact upon the conservation area and ancient monument of the town wall.

“We had to wait two months for a site visit to be held, and nearly a further three months to receive a formal response, which was basically ‘No’, and, contrary to the council’s claim of what their advice hopes to achieve, it gave absolutely no indication of ‘what opportunities exist’ for this particular site.”

Mr Elvidge explained this has left Mr Smith with no choice but to submit further applications at a significant cost and with the risk of these, too, being rejected.

He hopes the town will see the benefits for tourism that the holiday apartments would bring and that the town council, district council and the public will back the plans.

Mr Smith also explained it has become impossible to stop people dumping rubbish on the land, after vandals started a fire there two weeks ago.

However, Peter Hughes, a resident in Sandwich, believes he has seen trucks carrying rubbish from the caravan park and tipping it onto the land at Harps Meadow.

He said: “I contacted Dover District Council to ask if this was an authorised refuse dump, but they replied that they were not interested in the matter.”

He said the occupier of the site had not explained why he did not clear rubbish off his land “as the law requires.”

Mr Smith said any waste he had was stored in skips which he had receipts for.

He added: “All we store there is hard core material and we put it through a crusher and ship it back again. All the rubbish is brought in from third parties.”

A spokesman for the district council added: “DDC continues to work hard to tackle issues of fly-tipping. We would stress that fly-tipping is a criminal offence. The issue costs both the ordinary taxpayer, through having public land cleared, and property owners who have to pay to have waste cleared from their land.

“If a member of the public witnesses fly-tipping they can report it on the DDC website or by telephoning 01304 872428, during office hours, or 01304 821199 outside of office hours.”