A family of gipsies could find out today if they must move their home from a private plot in protected countryside.

Father-of-four Saillus Lee, 35, has placed a caravan, mobile home and toilet on his land close to Offham, near Lewes, but was told to apply for planning permission.

Lewes District Council's north area planning committee is due to decide this evening if the site will have to be cleared to protect the environment.

The private site is just seven miles from Firle, where a mock caravan with paintings of gipsy children painted on the side was set ablaze by residents last October.

The former chairman of the planning committee, Councillor Andrew Small, resigned from the post after admitting making a speech before the caravan was torched.

The councillor, then a Liberal Democrat but now an independent, had been the one to ask for a planning application from the family but said last night he had had no further dealings with the case.

Mr Lee's land is in an area of outstanding natural beauty (AONB), where building is restricted and gipsy sites are banned.

Mr Lee said: "I've been on the roads all my life. My father never settled and my grandfather before him never settled.

"But I don't want my children to do that, I want to take them off the roads. I cannot see my way of life going on because they need an education.

"We are just trying to be like everyone else rather than people looking at me like I'm the underclass. I just want to settle down."

Lindsey Frost, the council's director of planning and environmental services, said: "A decision to take enforcement action might result in Mr Lee being forced to remove his home from the land or his children losing their places in school.

"These consequences must be weighed against the harm caused to the environment if the council does not enforce against breaches of planning law.

"Councillors must guard against any inherent prejudices that might exist against gipsies."

Mr Small said: "I have not looked at this application at all."

Mr Lee cannot read and claimed he had not applied for permission because he did not understand the regulations.