YEARS of arguing with the local council has driven Clermont's celebrity cook out of town - his dream destroyed and $25,000 out of pocket.

Miles Pritchett, the ranger who competed on MasterChef Australia 2016, announced on the Clermont community noticeboard last week that he was leaving town, after his plan to open an eatery "did not come to fruition".

But, as The Daily Mercury can reveal, there was far more to the story, which dates back to 2015, when Mr Pritchett bought a rundown service station at Clermont.

He had been accepted into the 2015 season of the reality cooking show, but Mr Pritchett turned it down to take a new job as a Queensland Parks and Wildlife ranger in Clermont.

After a few months, he came across the service station at 40 Lime St, next to Hoods Lagoon; "the sort of place you'd just look at and be scared of".

But he saw potential in the old building and bought it on August 10, 2015.

By that stage he'd already set about planting a vegetable garden and renovating, with a plan to open a Devonshire tea and cappuccino outlet for grey nomads, who could come and park under the shady Indian siris and native eucalyptus trees outside.

But that dream started to crumble when he returned home 10 days after the property settlement to find the 80-year-old trees had been cut down.

"I just sat down and had a bit of a sob," Mr Pritchett said. "They'd destroyed my whole backyard."

When the tree loppers came back the next day he was there waiting. They told him they'd been contracted to do the maintenance work by Isaac Regional Council, who believed the trees sat outside Mr Pritchett's property boundary.

After a day of back and forth Mr Pritchett said the council project manager finally "apologised and explained that it was an error".

It later offered to plant saplings in their place; but as Mr Pritchett spent weeks away at a time he wouldn't have been able to water them. He then asked for a mediation with council to resolve the issue, which he said the council declined.

It was about that time he also learned that rezoning the block from residential to commercial in order to open the cafe would cost $23,000, which was $10,000 more than he had thought.

And before anything further could be resolved, he was whisked off to compete on MasterChef Australia 2016.

The service station even featured on the reality television show.

"I didn't have a TV and I didn't have a kitchen and there I was with a reality TV cooking show," he said.

After being eliminated from the show, he told media he would return to Clermont and open the cafe - the 'Miles Pie Club'. But on his return he found nothing had changed.

During that time, he said, council offered to buy the property for 10% more he paid for it.

While he had paid $150,000 and sunk more than $30,000 into it since, he said council's final offer was $165,000.

Isaac Regional Council chief executive Gary Stevenson confirmed the price, and said it was a "mutual agreement".

Mr Pritchett likened the options in front of him as choosing between amputating and bleeding to death. But having just been offered a job at the Gold Coast, where the woman he has recently married also lives, he took the deal.

He believes the experience still left him $25,000 out of pocket, given the money he spent on the place, the money lost when he was unable to rent it due to the on-going dispute, and the rates, which were higher than what he now pays on the Gold Coast.

Yet the most painful process was coming to terms with the loss of his dream, describing it as a grieving process "like when someone dies".

"I still feel it, it still burns a little," he said.

"I had that big dream of having a community coffee shop and marketplace.

" It just would have been so good for the town."

He said the reason he hadn't told his story sooner was because he didn't want people to think he was using his "so called celebrity status" to have a whinge about council.

Despite all that had happened, he said nothing would take away from his fond memories of Clermont.

"I really do love that town. I've still got extremely fond memories of living there and nothing would take away from that," he said.

Mr Stevenson confirmed the trees had been removed by council mistakenly.

He said the council had worked with the property owner reviewing "a number of different options" before agreeing that council would buy the property.

While the council had no plans for the site at this stage, he said it was a strategic site that may be integrated with the park beside Hoods Lagoon.

"Council looks forward to this site providing future benefit to the Clermont community for many years to come,' Mr Stevenson said.