Travellers hold village to ransom after setting up illegal camp and demanding £600,000 to leave

Villagers who gathered to protest at the site claim two men from within the camp approached them with the six-figure offer to vacate the area.

Those occupying the land acquired the plot last year, with three caravans, a mobile home and multiple lorries arriving on February 28, to the dismay of locals.

Workers laid rubble, plastic sheeting and tarmac to create a hardstanding area on the site, which sits within a designated conservation zone.

Michael Cook, who sold the land last year, described the unfolding situation as a "nightmare come true" for the community.

"This is an emergency for people in the village," he said, "when you think of crime, you think of it happening very quickly, but here we have 12 to 15 lorries running back and forth and someone should have been there to stop them".

.The 54-year-old criticised what he views as a "failure of authorities to act preventively rather than reactively".

Mr Cook retains ownership of half the field, having sold the remainder before it was subdivided and auctioned off in smaller parcels.

Crucially, the land remains subject to a covenant restricting its use solely to agricultural purposes.

The village is home to Dinton Hall, a Grade II-listed county manor house, and quarter-acre plots on the same site are understood to have sold for approximately £15,000 – far less than what's demanded in this instance

Buckinghamshire Council secured a High Court injunction on March 5, prohibiting any additional construction work or new occupants at the site, following a temporary stop notice issued earlier that week.

Roughly 100 local residents submitted planning breach notifications to the council, prompting the initial enforcement action on March 2.

However, a mobile home was brought onto the land after the stop notice was served, subsequently destroyed by a fire overnight.

Thames Valley Police confirmed they are treating the blaze, which occurred on the morning of March 3, as an act of arson.

"We can confirm that no one was inside the caravan at the time," a police spokesperson stated, appealing for witnesses to come forward.

A member of the traveller family, identifying himself only by the surname Doran, rejected accusations of illegal intent and claimed the family had faced a "racist" campaign from the community.

"Everyone's saying he didn't apply for planning permission but he didn't intend to do anything illegal," he told Oxford Mail, acknowledging his father had moved the caravan onto the site.

The family member denied any blackmail attempt, and suggested a villager may have been responsible for burning down the static home, citing previous threats against them.

"I believe the traveller community in this day and age go through more discrimination than any other ethnic group," he added.

Greg Smith, MP for Mid Buckinghamshire, condemned the situation as an "egregious breach" of planning law, noting multiple protections exist on the site, including the conservation zone and a church covenant held by the Diocese of Oxford.

Local authorities often run into issues when removing illegal traveller sites, such as the land on Newlands Road in Wickford, Essex, which the local council have been fighting for years.

The site illegally expanded by more than a dozen caravan pitches, riddling the area with loud noise into the night and anti-social behaviour that notably forced residents to sell up and move.

Basildon Council promised to take action at the site by July last year – a date that slipped past, with plans for enforcement action only drawn up in recent months.