Blue, John and Whinger dig deep to keep their Wild Wood free from a holiday village

With the Glastonbury festival over, "Blue" is back in his tunnel beneath the West Wood in deepest Kent, expecting a trickle of reinforcements over the next few days to oppose the creation of an pounds 80m holiday village.

The protest against the loss of 440 acres of woodland in the ancient Lyminge Forest is reaching a climax after years of legal manoeuvres. An eviction order has been served on the small band occupying the Rat Trap and other camps, but hopes are high that the Rank Group is about to abandon plans for the wood. West Wood lies in an officially designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty not far from Canterbury and is popular with walkers from well beyond the local area. Rank itself estimated the wood attracts more than 100,000 visitors a year.

But despite expressing some misgivings, John Gummer, then secretary of state for the environment, approved the development, and an appeal to the High Court was unsuccessful. The Lyminge Forest Action Group spent pounds 60,000 on its legal battle.

Rank, through its subsidiary Oasis, has permission to build a "village" with accommodation for 3,500 guests, many of whom it is expected would be from Europe. There would be 350 waterside villas, 400 forest lodges, studio apartments, shops, restaurants, lakes, a nine-hole golf course, an indoor "water world" and parking for 4,000 cars.

The leisure group, however, wants to be assured of vacant possession before completing its purchase from the Forestry Commission at a price said to be anywhere between pounds 4m and pounds 14m. Enforcing the eviction order would make a considerable hole in the commission's receipts from the sale.

Tunnels have been dug at several sites and work has begun on towers, tree houses and "hanging lock-ups". Large heaps of sand, the bedrock of the wood, testify to the industry of Blue and the small band of protesters who moved in last March. A veteran of the Newbury and Fairmile roads protests, Blue, 23, had just returned from Glastonbury and was anxious to see what damage the heavy rain had done to the tunnels. "I bumped into loads of people at the festival who said they would be on their way here," he said. Sheltering under the plastic sheeting of B'stard camp, the climbers Adam and John talked of finishing a tree camp and lock-up in the nearby beeches. Another brew from the kettle on the wood fire was the immediate priority.

Camp life and the digging and building are a more constant topic of conversation than the rich fauna and flora they have pledged to "defend to the last tree". Prompted, a 30-year-old from Brighton with the self-mocking nickname of "Whinger" said he was fed up of seeing the countryside destroyed. "I like to go out walking, but I don't want to come here in 20 years and find it just some plastic bubble."

Maybe he won't have to. Blue and the Friends of Lyminge Forest, who have been providing food and building material, are optimistic that the Rank Group is having second thoughts about the village.

A similar Oasis village just opened on the borders of the Lake District has suffered costly delays and the publicity over hollowing out a much- loved forest has been embarrassing.

No one was available to comment on behalf of Oasis. If the Forest Commission do not soon act on the court order, it will lapse. A spokesman said the commission was "aware of the protesters' action" but "no decision had been taken on implementing the possession order".