Travellers who set up home on a green belt site in Meriden have put in another planning application – for the land next door.

Furious villagers accused them of raiding the “Dale Farm book of tricks” to eke out the long-running row over the land at Eaves Green Lane, near Solihull.

That was a reference to the decade-long wrangle over the notorious Essex traveller site which was finally cleared amid violent scenes last year.

The residents spoke after travellers’ leader Noah Burton asked Solihull Council for permission to develop a plot close to land they already occupy for caravans and a builders’ yard.

Mr Burton said the application would give them more time to find a new home and add value to the land.

But the plan was condemned by campaign group Residents Against Inappropriate Development.

Chairman David McGrath said: “This is a move straight out of the Dale Farm book of tricks aimed at stringing out the illegal occupation of the green belt at the expense of taxpayers.

“All of these planning applications are being fought vigorously by residents.”

Mr Burton’s group moved on to the original plot of land on the May Day Bank Holiday weekend in 2010.

The High Court has ordered them to be off the site by next March but the villagers have also been told to quit their own protest camp or face a £20,000 fine or even a prison sentence.

Mr Burton said: “We have got to go somewhere, we cannot just disappear off the planet.

“This is a temporary site. We would take wherever the council offered us but they’ve come up with nothing.”

A council spokesman said the planning bid would not affect the terms of an injunction enforcing the travellers’ March deadline.

He said: “We have received a planning application in relation to the yard.

“The injunction in place for this site does not prevent a planning application from being made and we will need to process it in the normal way.

“However, the application does not affect the injunction which still requires the existing site to be vacated by next March and prohibits the occupation of the yard.

“We will continue to monitor the site to ensure the injunction is being complied with.”