Returning Poles call their time in Britain a latterday Battle of Britain, in reference to the large contingent of Polish airmen who fought with distinction in the wartime RAF. Many say that this second, economic, fight has been fought and won, and they want to return home to build their own houses, start families and put their experience to good use.

“I wanted to come back to Poland to settle down and also to chase my dreams,” said Kajetan Suder, 29, who lives in Zielona Gora, western Poland. In Britain, Mr Suder worked for construction companies in Bristol, renovating a 200-year-old house and helping to build an 11-floor office block. “England was only ever meant to be a short adventure for me,” he said.

Thanks to membership of the European Union and Nato, Poland is more prosperous and secure than it has been for centuries, and has started to draw its emigrants back. Economic growth is surging at about 6 per cent and offers work opportunities that until recently were available only in Western Europe. Unemployment has almost halved since 2003, and is expected to fall further as facilities are built for the Uefa football tournament taking place in Poland in 2012.

The zloty is soaring against sterling. When Polish workers began legally working in Britain, in May 2004, they could convert each pound saved into 7.2 zloty. Now £1 is worth only 4.8 zloty: meaning they have to find a way of earning more in Britain to save the same amount of Polish currency. “Money isn’t a reason to leave Poland any more,” said Michal Kowala, 27, a graduate in management sciences who returned to Warsaw from England after working as a croupier in a casino for £1,200 a month. “Graduates don’t really need to travel to England just to save a bit of money or gain work experience. It’s all here for us now.”

Migration figures for recent months are still being collated, but recruitment agencies, building firms and anecdotal evidence all indicate that the great tide of migration will rise no further and may be ebbing. Some experts say that about half of the estimated million Poles in Britain will go back within the next two years. “We can expect the gradual return of Poles from the UK to Poland,” said Miroslaw Bieniecki, of the Institute of Public Affairs in Warsaw. “The strong zloty is an important factor and affects where seasonal labourers choose to go for work in particular.”

This is good news for campaigners such as Rafal Dutkiewicz, the Mayor of Wroclaw, and Donald Tusk, the country’s Prime Minister, who have been emphasising the economic risks posed by permanent migration.

The Poles who came to Britain in 2004 were, analysts say, mainly single people and couples in their early twenties – born as part of the early 1980s baby boom that was an unexpected result of the imposition of martial law.

Another returned migrant, Maria Falkiewicz, 29, now earns the same as a project co-ordinator in Warsaw as she did as an office assistant in Bath. “The difference is that my costs in Warsaw are a third of what they were in Britain, and I’ve been able to buy a flat here.”

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