Wayne Rooney and wife Coleen relieved as travellers who set up camp next to their £20million home are ordered to leave
MANCHESTER UNITED icon Wayne Rooney his wife Coleen are breathing a sigh of relief after travellers who set up camp next to their £20million mansion have finally been ordered to leave.
The couple faced a tense 18-month standoff after 13 caravans - accommodating around 50 people - moved on to the site in August 2020.
It was located just three fields away from Wayne and Coleen’s 40-acre “Morrison’s Mansion” in Mobberley, Cheshire.
The council initially blocked plans for a traveller site after it received over 1,000 letters of objection from residents.
But Michael Maloney, who describes himself as a member of the Irish travelling community, moved onto the land anyway and then applied for retrospective planning permission.
It included proposals for three sites in total in the area and was rejected by Cheshire East Council in December 2020.
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Just months later Mr Maloney was handed a suspended prison sentence for ignoring an injunction barring him from developing the land.
A three-day public inquiry was then held at the beginning of March this year after the family appealed the council’s decision.
Planning inspectors have now given them 12 months to leave the site in a final ruling.
Charlotte Leach, Mobberley Ward councillor, said she was “thrilled” at the outcome.
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She added: “It sends a clear message that as a community we will not accept someone riding roughshod over our planning laws and treating us with contempt.”
Locals had fought to block the initial proposals, arguing the traveller site would “significantly change” the tranquillity of the countryside.
Wayne and Coleen's nearby 40-acre pad boasts six bedrooms, a bar, snooker room, cinema, gym, hot tub, swimming pool and spa.
The Derby County manager, his wife and their four boys moved in four months ago just before Christmas.
It’s been dubbed the “Morrisons Mansion” after fans pointed out its resemblance to the supermarket buildings.
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Planning inspector Roy Merrett said: “I need to balance the public interest in the notice being complied with against the private interests bound up in the development.
“Both the existing and proposed development of the site would amount to inappropriate development, which in both forms results in significant harm to the openness of the green belt.”