Five years ago, permission was granted to convert agricultural buildings at Rackford Farm, outside North Anston, into three homes as long as they "retained the scale and massing of the original buildings".

Then, in March this year, the developer submitted a new application to alter the existing planning permission, which would involve extending the existing barns to create three homes and three garages.

These new plans were refused on the grounds that the homes would have "a materially adverse effect on the architectural and historic interest of the buildings and on the character and openness of the green belt" and would also "constitute inappropriate development in the green belt".

However, planning officers from Rotherham Council discovered that work had already begun on the new development and ordered the developer to stop building in April this year.

At a planning committee meeting to take place today planning officers seek to take enforcement action against the developer, which would involve the new homes that are under construction, and all demolition materials, being cleared from the site within six months.

In a report to go before that meeting planning officers say the "great majority" of the existing farm buildings, which were supposed to have been retained and extended, have been demolished. The report says: "It became apparent at an early date in the life of the two latest planning applications and prior to their determination that the great majority of the buildings had been demolished and that work on the new proposals had commenced.

"At a site meeting between officers and the applicant on October 30, 2008 it was apparent that the shell and internal walls of the buildings refused permission have been constructed without the benefit of planning permission. Additional works have also been carried out which do not even relate to the plans that have been refused."

The report says that about 30 per cent of the original walls of the barns have been demolished to ground level, the remaining walls reduced in height and all the roofs removed.

The retaining walls had been pointed and cleaned so it was unclear whether they had actually been demolished and rebuilt.

As a result, the report says, the buildings are now "so materially different as to constitute inappropriate development in the green belt" and the architectural and historic interest of the farm buildings has been lost.

In a submission to the planning board Martin Davies, on behalf of North Anston-based building firm G Sanders, says that the development has been "sympathetic to the construction of the original buildings" and has "incorporated reclaimed materials wherever possible to maintain the historic appearance".

He also argues that the roofs of the buildings had to be removed due to "the poor state of the supporting timber framework" and the barn conversion has been "sympathetic to the original character and size of the development throughout".