Terrance and Kathleen Lowther are at the centre of a planning battle with Alnwick District Council, after applying for planning permission to pitch three caravans on land in Warkworth.

The couple, who have been married 33 years, say they were left with no choice but to move to the site on Heatherleazes after their camp in Carlisle closed down two weeks ago.

And they insist it is vital they are allowed to set up home while youngest daughter Lisa Anne battles cancer.

The 23-year-old, who has a caravan next to her parents, is undergoing three months of radiotherapy at Newcastle General Hospital for a malignant lymphoma.

Even her medical team have backed the family's fight to stay put.

Dr Hugh O'Brien, consultant haematologist at Cumbria Infirmary, said: "Clearly it is important she has local and secure accommodation over the next three months and ideally she should be able to stay where she is living at the moment."

Villagers have raised fears more travelling families will follow the Lowthers.

But Terrance, who runs a property maintenance business, dismisses these claims.

"Some people are all right and some people don't want us here. They think we are going to set up a big gypsy encampment here but we aren't. This is our home. Anyway, there isn't enough room – you couldn't whip a cat here."

The one-acre site has been in Mrs Lowther's family, the Ornsbys, for more than 100 years.

It was owned by her great uncle and eventually left to her.

She took up the travellers' way of life when they married but still has relatives in the area and her great-grandparents and grandparents are buried in the local churchyard.

Permission was granted in 2001 to turn the site into an equestrian centre, but the Lowthers are requesting permission for change of use to allow them to pitch three caravans, and install a portable toilet and shed. At present it is home to one horse and two donkeys.

"It is very important that we stay here," 52-year-old Kathleen said.

Terrance, who is a member of the Freemasons and a regular churchgoer, adds: "I want to stay here for life. I'm 60 years old now.

"I was brought up to work hard, earn money to keep the family going and pull your weight. Kathleen does all my bookwork, I am 100 per cent legal and I can't see a problem with us staying here. What harm are we doing?

"The days of killing the Jews and the gypsies are over."

Terrance's father died of cancer when he was four, which was blamed on mustard-gas exposure in the trenches.

He said: "We can take to war; we can fight for the Government, but when it comes to being left alone it doesn't happen. They say go somewhere else, but where?"

Agent for the Lowthers, Alison Heine, said: "This is not best agricultural land. It is not an isolated site in the open countryside.