AFTER a five and a half year battle, costing £75,000 in legal fees alone, residents in Princes Risborough were celebrating this week after buying back a patch of land that had been controversially used as a travellers’ site since 2009.

The news comes after years of legal wrangling and negotiations over the Hemley Hill site - and even now their stuggles are not over, with a massive cleanup operation ahead of them so they can restore the site to pastureland.

Alison Ingram, a member of the Hemley Hill Action Group which formed to stand against the travellers in 2009, said: "We’re absolutely elated it’s all over. Now we have got to restore the land to what it was before. It’s additional cost but there’s going to be a great end to it.

"It’s very daunting but we’re determined it will be returned to what it was before - part of the Chiltern Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty."

The lengthy saga began when travellers moved onto the Hemley Hill site, which they purchased, on Good Friday in 2009. Over the next two days they laid large quantities of hardcore on the land and erected fences around the site.

Wycombe District Council stopped them carrying on with a legal injunction. The travellers then applied for planning permission to develop the two acre site, which was refused by WDC.

An appeal followed, which was also refused, before a public enquiry was held in 2010, which saw both the council and nearby residents - largely members of the Hemley Hill Action Group - represented.

The public enquiry upheld the council’s decision and gave the travellers 18 months to vacate the site, partly on the basis of the harm being caused to the green belt. The case then went to the Court of Appeal, which once more refused the travellers’ bid to remain on the site. The travellers were then given another 18 months to vacate the site - a period that would have expired in January next year.

Residents told the BFP that although the site was full in the early days, for the past couple of years there have been very few occupiers on the site, and sometimes it has been empty.

Negotiations between seven neighbouring residents and the travellers have been proceeding for more than six months now, but finally, as of Wednesday this week the land is now owned by these residents, who say it will be restored to pastureland and kept safe from future development. The amount paid for the site by the residents has not been made clear - only that it was a "significant amount".

Mrs Ingram - who lives nearby the site but is not one of the seven households that bought the site, said: "We can’t believe it’s taken so long and its cost a ridiculous amount of money - we had to get our own legal representation.

"We have been so well supported, not just by the local community, but because it went nationwide. We’ve had donations from people who were so generous. We couldn’t have done it without them."

As well as contributions from residents, a ‘fighting fund’ was created from donations from other parties and fundraising events.

But Mrs Ingram said she thinks the travellers themselves had come to realise that Hemley Hill was not going to make the home they first thought it might, because the hilly land was not practical for such use.

She added: "They moved in but realised it would be quite a bleak place to live. Over the last few months we have not had many travellers up there at all.

"I think they realised the end was nigh."

The Hemley Hill residents have thanked all those who supported them, whether with donations, moral support and by objecting to the plans.