A RETIRED farmer who hit the headlines in an unusual land battle was found dead after failing to return home from a Sunday stroll.

Police launched a hunt for Gordon Hardwick and eventually found the Wolverley pensioner at his second home, less than a mile away.

Mr Hardwick, 67, left his Lowe Lane house at 3pm on Sunday and was reported missing to police at 6.15pm.

Officers made the discovery at 7.50pm at a property at Beeches Road. A post mortem showed death to be from natural causes.

He was featured on the front page of the Shuttle/Times & News in June 2000 when he hit out at Wyre Forest District Council for failing to use land forcibly purchased from his father in 1948.

The value of the 6.154 acres of farmland has rocketed from £675 - which Kidderminster Rural District Council originally paid in its bid to use it for urgent post-war homes - to £2.5 million.

A former Wolverley parish councillor, Mr Hardwick had until his death been campaigning for speed reductions on Lowe Lane and was instrumental in getting sheltered accommodation built in Sebright Road.

District councillor Nigel Addison said the former Tomkinsons Carpets worker was a community figure who fought a "life-long" battle with the council over the land by his bungalow on Lowe Lane.

He said: "It really upset him, he felt his father had been hard-done-by by the council and he wanted to see it used in a positive way.

"He would often ring me up with various issues and was concerned with the speeding along his road."

Cousin Neil Hardwick said: "He did a lot for the people of the parish while he was a councillor, he was one of the most active members of the council."

Gordon Hardwick leaves a wife, Shirley, two sons, a daughter and a grandson.