Residents who live at a caravan park say they are being made temporarily homeless in a row with council chiefs.

About 200 people living in static caravans at Crook Farm, Glen Road, Baildon Moor, have been told they have to leave their homes in February for a month because of planning rules designed to protect green spaces.

Council bosses say the residents cannot live on the site all year round because it would turn the site into a semi-permanent housing estate and contravene planning policies.

However, residents say they are still being charged council tax for the entire year despite being told to vacate.

Now, the residents are calling for a discount in their band A council tax or to be allowed to stay at the site throughout the year.

Resident Ernie Steel, 45, has spent £450 on a touring caravan and will be spending February at a caravan site in Esholt but he says some other residents have nowhere else to go.

He said: “One woman was given a list of hostels by Bradford Council and another couple sold up because they were under the impression that they could stay on the site for 12 months and then were told they couldn’t.

“I think it stinks that Bradford Council can call this permanent one minute and charge the residents council tax and the next minute can kick us off.”

About eight caravans out of around 130 at the site are let to tourists, with the vast majority of residents living there permanently.

The former Baildon Urban District Council granted planning permission for Crook Farm to become a caravan site in 1961. At the time, there was no condition on the length of time people were allowed to stay. But in 2000 a deed was signed, effectively allowing people to live on site all year except between January 15 and March 1.

An application was submitted last year in an attempt to remove the restriction but it was refused because of the need to “protect the openness of the green belt”, council officers said.

Diane Melling said residents had been exempt from paying council tax when she moved in more than two years ago, and that the money saved in previous years would pay towards alternative accommodation in February.

She said: “There are people here with families and it must be difficult for them because they have to stay somewhere in the area to get their children to school every day.

“There is a shortage of affordable housing and you would think the Council would be grateful that we are living up here and not putting our names down on the housing list. Then they would have to provide homes for another 200 people.”

Campaigner Ian Lyons, of Baildon, has taken up the residents’ cause.

He said: “It seems to me that the Labour Council have been trying to have their cake and eat it. The residents at Crook Farm are paying Council tax, and are getting very little in return.

“I believe that the residents have every right to be upset about this issue, and I fully support what they are trying to achieve.”

The Council declined to comment.