A councillor has returned to the woods where he has been staging a HS2 protest, just days after he was removed and arrested.

Cllr Steve Masters, who sits on West Berkshire Council, was arrested in Jones’ Hill Wood on Friday, October 3, after he was removed from a tree where he had been living for three months.

The 50-year-old and dozens of other environmentalists have been staying in makeshift treehouses, protesting plans to build the high-speed rail line through the woods in Buckinghamshire.

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HS2 security workers and Thames Valley Police officers were called in to evict the protesters on October 2 and they are still in the process of removing them.

Cllr Masters was arrested on Friday for breaching a bail condition – imposed after an arrest at an earlier protest – that prohibits him from impeding HS2 workers.

The Green Party councillor was released without charge the following day, but says he has returned to the trees to re-join the protest and he is aiming to stay “for as long as possible”.

He said protesters have just one treehouse left, as the eviction team have dismantled the others, but they are now building a second.

He added: “We’ve got eight in the tree at the moment and we are hoping to build on that.”

Over the last week, there has been a tense standoff between protesters and the eviction team.

Cllr Masters has accused security workers of “slashing their tree pruners indiscriminately at protesters”.

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But a HS2 spokeswoman said protesters have been abusive and thrown urine, faeces, paint pots, rocks, and smoke grenades at the eviction team.

She also said that less than 0.3 square kilometres ancient woodland will be lost during the first phase of HS2 and more than 33 square kilometres of new woodland and wildlife habitats are “being created”.

Cllr Masters is still on bail after he was arrested for taking part in a protest that blocked another HS2 construction site in Buckinghamshire last month.

He is at due to appear at Central and West Herts Magistrates Court on October 30.