Deputy prime minister John Prescott has reportedly rejected soft-fruit grower S&A Davies’s appeal against the decision to scrap its accommodation for 1,000 workers.

The village built for S&A fruit pickers on the south Shropshire border now faces being pulled down after the government refused to uphold and appeal to save it, according to local press.

The long-running case has been dubbed Battle of Strawberry Fields, after Herefordshire Council’s Northern Area Planning Committee refused to grant S&A Property Ltd retrospective permission for toilets and site works for 300 caravans in May 2004.

S&A Property appealed against the decision but the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister has dismissed the appeal.

S&A Property could decide to challenge it in the High Court.

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