A VILLAGE green long-sealed off by a concrete fence will finally be freed after residents won a long-running legal battle to have the barrier removed.

Harlow Magistrates Court found Zubair Hamidi guilty of enclosing a village green after he built a fence around land at Chestnut Avenue and Hornbeam Road, in Buckhurst Hill.

He was fined £200, but more importantly for campaigning residents, the verdict means the wall is officially illegal and can be removed with an injunction.

Laurie Kubiak, who has led the Roding Valley Residents Committee which formed to fight for the village green said: “The fence is unquestionably illegal. We have got all the criminal evidence we can now produce- that was the main thing.

“We have got a number of options open to us. We could either get him to take down the fence himself with an injunction, we could ask the council to do it or we could do it ourselves with a properly insured contractor. The main thing is we just want this over quickly.”

The recent court hearing was the third one held to look into the village green case, after two previous hearing were adjourned because Mr Hamidi failed to show up.

Mr Hamidi also declined to show at the latest meeting, instead sending a letter stating he was in Clacton and the land didn't belong to him, but the case was heard in his absence.

Mr Kubiak said: “I'm glad it's all over. It was a little time consuming but we got the right result in the end so we can't complaint too much. It's been a frustrating few months. But now we have a finding which will allow us to show it's an illegal fence. All that remains is to remove it, clean up the land and job done.”

Mr Hamidi bought the land as Green Belt in 2008 but it was officially approved as a village green in July 2009 forcing him to retrospectively remove the fence he had built on it, even if he is no longer the owner.

Speaking to the Guardian after the judgement Mr Hamidi said: “I told the court I'm not the owner of this land. I got written permission from the council to build the wall when I was the owner. I'm not interested in this land. I'm not taking any action because it doesn't belong to me.”