Outraged residents today vowed to fight plans for a breaker's yard near their country cottages.

They are furious they were not officially consulted before the scheme was approved and are threatening to report Kettering Council to the Ombudsman.

They fear their rural idyll will be destroyed and their children put in danger. And they say local roads are inadequate to take the extra traffic.

The residents live in a terrace of five isolated cottages overlooking open farmland off Cranford Road, Burton Latimer, and a pig farm about 110 yards away.

Councillors approved the principle of the farm area being used for the breaker's yard and a group of small factories, though formal plans have still to be submitted.

An original scheme to site it on the Telford Way industrial estate in Kettering was abandoned after factory bosses objected.

Mrs Denise Scott said: "We are thinking of appealing or taking it to the Ombudsman. We only heard about it by chance through the ET.

"It was planned to put this in Kettering but just because the factory owners had plenty of financial muscle the idea was dropped. We haven't got the same power."

Ronald Wheatley said: "We are appalled. We moved up here from London when I retired last Novem­ber for peace and quiet and the open views we have around.

"I understand the council has made promises to find these breakers a site because it moved them on from somewhere else. Why should we have them dumped on us?"

Mum Susan Gregory has two young daughters and is frightened they will no longer be able to play safely outside.

A Kettering Council spokesman said Burton Latimer Town Council had been consulted to gauge local feeling.

Planners were fully briefed on letters from three cottagers and a petition from all five. They agreed only after assurances the activity would be carefully controlled and sited, with a one-year licence for the yard which could be revoked if there were problems.

The yard would be 220 metres from the cottages and in a dip to help minimise intrusion. It would be beyond the factories, which would be 110 metres away behind a 10-metre deep belt of trees.