Bank Holiday 'land grabs' are making travellers millionaires overnight, locals have claimed - amid fears that land once considered unsuitable for development could now be sold for huge profits.
Patches of countryside in Essex and Kent were targeted this weekend as travellers swooped in to build unauthorised pitches while council offices were closed.
They are the latest examples in a trend that has seen travellers purchase land, often in leafy parts of the Home Counties, before concrete is laid and caravans moved in.
Planning permission is then sought retrospectively, with travellers often granted the right to stay because there is an 'unmet need for pitches'.
And in some cases, the value of the plot can soar dramatically once approval is given, due to recent planning reforms that reclassify parts of the 'Green Belt' as 'Grey Belt'.
Grey Belt is a term that was formally recognised as part of former minister Angela Rayner's overhaul of planning policy in December 2024.
While still technically protected, it refers to lower quality greenbelt land that has been or has the potential to be developed on, in turn making it more desirable to purchase.
In West Malling, Kent, furious residents say travellers have become 'millionaires overnight' after an illegal encampment was built on greenbelt land.
The land in the Stockbroker Belt village was bought for just £105,000 at auction in 2020.
ESSEX: An 'illegal' camp was built on a four-acre piece of land in the historic hamlet of Willows Green, near Felsted over the Bank Holiday weekend
KENT: Industrial diggers worked through most of the May bank holiday weekend to lay rubble on land in Hoath, Canterbury, as travellers ignored a stop notice issued by the council
KENT: The traveller site which has now been approved in West Malling, Kent, making the owners 'millionaires'
Then over the course of a series of weekends, caravans, mobile washrooms, a septic tank and dog kennels were illegally installed.
Although the council issued an enforcement notice in 2021, the decision was successfully appealed, and permission was later granted in December last year.
Due to the development, the land is now classified as 'Grey Belt' and according to property website Zoopla part of the field could now be worth as much as £1.4million.
Locals told the Daily Mail their 'treasured greenbelt land has been transformed into a lucrative asset for those who flouted planning laws'.
Similar concerns have been raised in Essex, where the controversial Dale Farm site was previously linked to potential multi-million pound redevelopment plans.
A developer is understood to have approached Basildon Council about turning the six-acre greenbelt site in Crays Hill into more than 500 homes in 2019.
Each acre was believed to be worth between £1million and £1.5million, despite travellers buying the plots for as little as £5,000.
ESSEX: Image shows what the site in the historic hamlet of Willows Green looked like before it was paved over
A lorry carrying a static home onto another site in Sundridge, Kent got stuck over the Easter weekend
Experts have spoken about how the difference in value between greenbelt and grey belt land boils down to the development opportunities.
Ufuk Bahar, managing director of planning firm Urban Architecture, said: 'The value lift [from Green Belt to Grey Belt] is not created by changing the colour of the map. It is created by reducing planning risk.
'Green Belt land is often valued on the basis that development is very difficult to secure.
'If a site is later identified as Grey Belt, or is shown through evidence to make only a limited contribution to the core Green Belt purposes, the market may start pricing in a more realistic prospect of permission.'
He continued: 'In the case of traveller sites, the same basic economics apply, but the policy position is more specific.
'A lawful traveller site consent may create value because it changes what the land can legally be used for.
'However, that does not mean buying greenbelt land and calling it Grey Belt guarantees a profitable outcome.
'Grey Belt may open a door in some cases, but it is still the planning decision that creates the value.'
Travellers, who carry out illegal land grabs, can also make thousands of pounds by renting out the caravans, for months or even years, while they seek retrospective planning permission.
'Land grabs' have sparked the ire of Conservative MP James Cleverly after travellers flattened a four-acre wildlife haven in his Essex constituency
In Shipley Bridge, a wealthy Surrey hamlet that has been besieged by up to 10 illegal pitches, travellers are charging tenants nearly £1000 a month to live at the sites.
Posts on Facebook advertising the mobile homes for rent boast of 'lovely walks, log cabins and open plan living and kitchen areas'.
One owner even told a prospective client he would charge £900-a-month for a one-bedroom log cabin in a social media thread that has been reported to the local council.
There have also been claims from residents that some occupants may be migrants, although there is no direct evidence to support these allegations.
Locals in Hoath, Canterbury, which was targeted by the latest wave of 'land grabs' over the Bank Holiday weekend are currently fighting for the occupants to be evicted.
A hedgerow was flattened to make way for an entrance, and a static caravan was already in place by Sunday.
A planning application to station three caravans on the land had been thrown out by the council a month earlier after officers said it would be a 'harmful form of development'.
The countryside area is also thought to be home to protected species of reptiles, breeding birds, and foraging bats, according to a report by Kent County Council's Ecological Advice Service.
Diggers are seen at the site in West Malling, Kent, before it was tarmacked over and a traveller pitch built on it
Canterbury City Council told the Daily Mail it 'will carry out further checks to ensure they have been complied with later this week'.
'We always take reports of unauthorised activity seriously and act as quickly as we can,' a spokesperson for the council said.
Meanwhile, the underhanded tactic sparked the ire of Conservative MP James Cleverly after travellers flattened a four-acre wildlife haven in his Essex constituency.
The former Home Secretary on Saturday accused the group of 'gaming the system' after they started building an 'illegal' camp in the historic hamlet of Willows Green, near Felsted, Essex.
An army of workers turned up within hours of the local district council closing its doors for the bank holiday weekend on Friday.
About 30 vehicles, including cars, vans and several diggers, were brought onto the field under the cover of darkness in the Conservative MP's constituency.
Vegetation was ripped up to prepare the ground for a hardcore and tarmac base. Today, aerial photos showed fences already installed as diggers continued to lay rubble.
Mr Cleverly was seen walking in the field near the site on Saturday and posted a video on Facebook to demand that action be taken.
'This is why we have got to take action to make sure that building work like this, taking place outside office hours, clearly seeking to game the system, that we are able to take decisive and quick action,' he said.
'Because the local community here knows that this is going to be disruptive to them, and anyone who has tried to get a builder to start work after hours on a Friday on a bank holiday weekend will know that there's something not right about this.'
A spokesperson for the Department for Housing, Communities and Local Government said: 'Any traveller site development must have planning permission.
'Councils have strong powers to sanction developments if this is not done.'