A family living in limbo in the last remaining home on an abandoned council estate fear they might be forced to endure further years of uncertainty.

Andrew and Karen Cox and their three children live in the last house at Notton Park, an estate of pre-fabs built in the Second World War near Lacock and now lying derelict and overgrown.

A scheme to build six homes on the site was approved by North Wiltshire District Council's development control committee last week but Mr and Mrs Cox fear a last-minute condition requiring two of the houses to be sold at a discounted rate could throw a spanner in the works.

"We're not happy about it," said Mr Cox, a landscape gardener.

"The developers will have to take down the existing buildings and clear the site of asbestos. Now it may not be worth their while doing it."

Coun Christine Reid said she was very disappointed by the outcome of the meeting and sympathised with the the family. "The district council has let them down over the years," she said.

"They have bought a house that is half of a semi, so they are attached to a decaying ruin."

Chippenham-based developers Harbren want to build two terraces of three houses on the two and a half acre site, creating managed woodland on the rest. Mr Cox said he had spoken to the firm and it said it was considering its options in the light of the decision.

At last week's meeting, Coun Toby Sturgis said the site was council-owned land and so a percentage of the site should be affordable properties.

He proposed that two of the houses should be sold at a discounted rate in perpetuity to give people a chance to get on the housing ladder and his proposal was adopted by the committee.

The houses became local authority homes after the war and Mrs Cox's parents bought their property under the right-to-buy scheme in the early 1980s.

Mrs Cox was born in the house and she and her husband later bought it from her parents.

But later in the 1980s families were moved out and the estate fell into ruin, until only the Cox family was left.

"We want them to get on and tidy up the area," said Mr Cox. "But if the developer pulls out we are back to square one and we could be living next to a derelict house for the next five years."