London | Fallen Australian financier Lex Greensill has scuttled a five-year project to buy a 502-acre tract of park and farmland next to his English village home, after seemingly failing to overcome a rift in the local community over his plan.

In an open letter to the 3000 residents of Saughall – the village in north-west England where he and his family live in a converted vicarage – the Bundaberg farmer and one-time billionaire said he was no longer trying to buy Shotwick Park for a sustainable farming and conservation project.