AFTER four ponies were found abandoned in a field animal welfare officers from East Hampshire District Council’s and the RSPCA met with Hampshire Police to discuss the plight of the horses. 

EHDC announced this week after the meeting, it hopes a resolution of the problems surrounding the horses, will be achieved in the near future, but gave no further details.

The Devil’s Lane site was occupied for the last two years by Felix Connors and his family. But after the gypsies moved off the site before Christmas Mr Connors has denied owning the ponies left behind.

He posted a notice on Liphook’s community website. denying any responsibility for the four ponies, claiming he had allowed other people to use the land to keep their horses on, and had taken his own with him.

The Connors family were due to vacate the site by the end of August after a seven-day public inquiry last summer at which Mr Connors lost his appeal against an enforcement notice issued by EHDC in March 2015, which prevented him from using the agricultural land as a gypsy caravan site.

The land has now been put up for sale for £750,000, and advertised as being in excess of two acres – part paddock, part-residential, for “occupation by a single gypsy family in a quiet rural country lane close to Liphook village”.

Details claim the site has planning permission for a single gypsy family’s sole occupation in three static mobile homes, three touring caravans, with two brickbuilt utility buildings, two stable blocks and a hard-standing area. A septic tank and drainage has already been installed. Existing static homes on the site are included within the sale.

Land Registry records show the land was bought by Felix Connors, Ned Connors and Michael Connors.