CAMPAIGNERS in Bearsted are celebrating after a businessman stepped in to buy a green space in the village to save it from the hands of developers.

A 15-acre piece of woodland in Church Landway, one of the last remaining green spaces in the village, has been the subject of a concentrated protest after developers Ward Homes began felling oak trees to clear the land.

But residents are breathing a sigh of relief after food industry entrepreneur Richard Ashness, 50, stepped in to buy back all 15 acres from the company.

And now the father-of-three says he is looking forward to taking the land back to the community.

He said: "There were two motivations for my actions. One was that we live in Mote Hall, a wonderful listed property close to the land in question. Our personal view was to protect our home.

"I have also been fortunate in business and I had been looking into doing something charitable. Helping the village delighted me.

"This has all happened fantastically quickly. We have a huge amount of work to do after the terrible devastation they caused on site and I will be looking to planning officers to tell me what I am allowed to do."

Mr Ashness plans to set up a charitable trust and put most of the land into it, saving a smaller area for community use.

"It could be used for allotments, or I know the church is short of burial space. I will talk to people in the community about it. After all it is the local protestors who made this possible by preventing building work so far," he said.

Mr Ashness would not reveal the price he had paid for the land but said it was more than Ward Homes had paid.

Campaigners continued their fight to the end when they attended Maidstone Borough Council's housing strategy and regeneration meeting on Wednesday to present cabinet member Cllr Dan Daley (Lib Dem)with a 667-signature petition calling for the land to be made a conservation area.

Cllr Daley announced at the meeting that Mr Ashness had bought the site.

He told the campaigners he did not have the power to make the site a conservation area but he hoped the new ownership of the land would remove the threat of houses being built.

Campaigner and ex-parish councillor Mick Clark, who attended the meeting, said: "This goes to show that in a David and Goliath situation it is possible for ordinary people to overcome the odds.

"Some local council members said that it was a pointless fight because the big boys always win. We have proved that if you are persistent you can fight those big boys."