PLANNING chiefs are poised to determine the fate of a £750,000 dream house at the centre of a six-year wrangle.

The New Forest National Park Authority (NPA) will decide if ex-nightclub owner Ken Duffy and his wife Jacky should be forced to demolish their luxury home.

The couple have launched an egg production business in a last-ditch attempt to comply with a planning condition and thus save the property.

They moved to the site at North Drive, Ossemsley, near New Milton, in 1997 - two years after the district council had granted permission for a three-bedroom bungalow specifically for an agricultural worker.

Mr Duffy built a four-bedroom house in what council chiefs described as the worst breach of planning control they had ever come across.

The authority took enforcement action against Mr Duffy in 2000 after claiming that his new house breached planning laws and should be torn down. However, he lodged an appeal and a subsequent planning inquiry ruled that demolition would breach the family's human rights.

Council officers said that the decision set a dangerous precedent and went to the High Court, which declared that a second inquiry should be held.

The new hearing was chaired by government planning inspector Andrew Kirby, who described Mr Duffy as "foolhardy and pig-headed". However, John Prescott, then Secretary of State for the Environment, gave the family three years to comply with the original agricultural occupancy condition by setting up an egg production unit.

The three years is now up and Mr Duffy, 53, claims to have met the condition after establishing a viable poultry business.

The case has recently been transferred from the district council to the NPA, which gained its full powers on April 1.

An NPA spokesman said: "We've received an agricultural appraisal from the consultants commissioned by the council and I imagine the application will be determined in the next few weeks.

"It's not yet clear whether it will be decided by officers or the NPA planning committee, which is due to meet on May 16. It depends on whether the officers' view conflicts with that of New Milton Town Council."

The Duffys have recently taken delivery of a second flock of 3,500 laying chickens. Mr Duffy said: "It's going well. We've fulfilled all the particulars they wanted and have just got to wait for the decision."