A smallholder with 100 rescue animals has been ordered off her land by a council - despite the previous owner winning the right to stay.
Tracey Milton moved to the five acre plot in the Scottish Borders from her home county of Somerset around 14 months ago.
She purchased the land from a previous owner who lived in a static caravan on site - and raises chickens, alpacas, geese, pigs, Shetland ponies and a parrot.
The previous owner had been denied permission to live on the land in 2004 but successfully appealed and won.
When purchasing the property from them Tracey came to an agreement with a neighbouring landowner to supply electricity and water.
During the sale she was never informed that she may not be able to live on site near Selkirk.
But after living in her own static caravan on the property for four months, Scottish Borders Council enforcement officers arrived to order Tracey to leave.
Now Tracey says she will fight to remain on the land to look after her over 100 rescued animals.
Tracey Milton moved to the five acre plot in the Scottish Borders from her home county of Somerset around 14 months ago.
She purchased the land from a previous owner who lived in a static caravan on site - and raises chickens, alpacas, geese, pigs, Shetland ponies and a parrot.
The previous owner had been denied permission to live on the land in 2004 but successfully appealed and won.
When purchasing the property from them Tracey came to an agreement with a neighbouring landowner to supply electricity and water.
During the sale she was never informed that she may not be able to live on site near Selkirk.
But after living in her own static caravan on the property for four months, Scottish Borders Council enforcement officers arrived to order Tracey to leave.
Now Tracey says she will fight to remain on the land to look after her over 100 rescued animals.
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FunTranscript
00:00I'm Tracy and I'm at Westfields just outside Midland in the Scottish Borders.
00:05I'd like to show you around where I live and I call home which I am fighting to
00:10stay here with the council. The static has been my home for the last 14 months.
00:19It suits me. I don't need anything bigger. It's quiet. I moved here because of my mental health.
00:28I suffer chronic COPD, depression. I've had four mini strokes. So I wanted somewhere where I could
00:36live and have my animals and live out the rest of my days. So now we come to the animals.
00:46A lot of these are rescues that we have here because I can't bear to see any animals being
00:51put to sleep. So we go down here we have some mum, dad and the babies that are not so baby anymore.
01:10The two geese, somebody couldn't care for them anymore so they brought them to us.
01:18They'll live out their days free ranging here. The babies are our size now.
01:43Just mind your head.
01:47So
02:03the situation is we bought the property as residential. All of the paperwork says residential.
02:11No one once said that we were not allowed to live here. We moved on to the land 14 months ago.
02:21Absolutely brilliant. We got a new static because the static that was here was falling apart.
02:26Was living here quite happy for 14 months, for four months and a knock at the door and it was
02:32the enforcement officers telling me that I had no right to be living here and there was an
02:38enforcement notice on the land and I wouldn't be able to stay. So it's rushing around trying to
02:47find somebody that can help us in the legal department with planning and everything.
02:51We put in for planning, they rejected it, we appealed. The appeal then went to the councillors
03:03and I believe there was a couple of councillors that have said they need more information because
03:08obviously this is my home. I have nowhere else to live. These animals, there's over 100 animals here
03:16and they rely on me. The council want to know why I'm not living somewhere else.
03:22I only ride a mobility scooter because of my health. So there is nowhere and with the housing
03:28crisis there is nowhere for me to live that I can get here three or four times a day to check the
03:35animals and I'm certainly the animals welfare come first. So for me to move off of the land
03:43the animals will suffer and my mental health will suffer.