A FAMILY fighting to protect a water meadow in South Oxfordshire is celebrating after a bid to open up its fields to dog walkers failed.

An application to designate The Meadows in Stadhampton as a village green has been withdrawn after council officers recommended it was thrown out.

The bid began in 2010 after the beauty spot was fenced off in an effort to protect the land and the cattle that graze on it.

The Meadows has been owned by Wiley-Blackwell senior publisher Robert Campbell and his wife Frances, who have a deal with the Environment Agency to manage the land, for 12 years.

Mrs Campbell said: “The meadow is being farmed under a stewardship agreement, which we get a grant for, because it’s protected and so is a lot of the wildlife on it.

“It has to be farmed to a very high specification because it’s a water meadow and a very endangered environment.”

Mrs Campbell said the area had been used to graze horses, and was not used by dog walkers until a “handful” began to walk there just as it was being prepared for the Environment Agency’s conditions.

She said: “We had problems with kids and there were dog walkers behaving less than considerately, and we were getting increasingly concerned, so in 2009 we made a very beautiful post and rail fence.

“We fenced off the meadow very generously, taking every piece of advice from countryside services, and we created a footpath between Stadhampton and Chiselhampton which was not there before.”

Mrs Campbell said the family was shocked when a village green application was made under the Commons Act 2006. If successful, it would have allowed anyone on to the land.

She said: “I felt as if I had been punched in the stomach, we couldn’t believe it. These were people who were neighbours, who knew perfectly well what the project was.”

The family took legal advice, and won the support of more than 50 villagers. The town green bid was backed by nine.

Mrs Campbell said: “The real heartwarming thing for us is how wonderfully the village has responded on our behalf.”

The application by Mark Duffy has been removed from Monday’s county council planning and regulation committee agenda.

The Oxford Mail tried to contact Mr Duffy for comment but was unsuccessful.