Protesters are celebrating after a local authority's plans to sell-off a greenfield site were halted by the council's new administration.

South Lanarkshire Council had earmarked Colonsay Field for sale for housing - claiming that the £7m it would raise was needed for the adjoining Calderglen Country Park.

However, the intentions attracted a year-long campaign of opposition from locals who felt that the addition of around 100 houses was too much of a sacrifice of green belt.

The site was reprieved yesterday following a meeting which included representatives from the executive, South Lanarkshire Council and local community councils.

Graeme Macklin, chairman of St Leonard's Community Council, claimed that the campaign to save the land had the support of more than 10,000 people and was satisfied with the outcome of the meeting.

He said: "I am pleased for everybody who took the time to help. It has been a victory of the people versus the planners.

"The green belt must be kept. Everybody is talking about carbon footprints and saving the planet - well, we have done our bit in our wee corner of it and it feels like a massive step forward."

The campaign to keep the site had involved mass demonstrations and attracted the support of Taggart star Blythe Duff after it emerged that the local council wanted to include the site in its first 10-year building plan as open to development.

A spokesman for the council explained plans to sell the site and alter the country park would no longer go ahead.

She said: "Councillors agreed to maintain the site's use as informal open space."

By John-Martin Fulton