It is increasingly difficult to give an accurate figure of the size of the Polish community in the United Kingdom, simply because of the transient nature of that community. Some have settled over here, made homes here and have no intention of returning permanently to Poland whereas others are in this country for financial reasons, to make some money and return to their homeland as soon as financially possible. Some estimates give the current numbers of Poles in the UK at between one and two million, but it is an ever changing picture.

Thousands of Poles came into the country after the First World War and again in 1940, after France was taken by the Germans, the exiled Polish government and many Polish soldiers came over to the UK. Though many intended to return when peace was restored, with a communist government installed in Warsaw, more decided to stay and make their home in the UK.

Since the Second World War two major events have triggered large scale immigration into the UK from Poland. The first was the Polish Resettlement Act of 1947 which saw the community grow from 44,000 to around 162,000. As the community became established other family and friends followed to also make their home in this country.

The EU expansion in 2004 brought the A8 countries into the union, namely the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Poland which brought the number of members states to 25. Those newly joined countries were able to benefit from the decisions made by Britain, Ireland and Sweden who were the first to allow open access to their countries. By 2006 the Polish community had grown by almost half a million and more have followed in subsequent years.

In terms of those working in Britain, figures in 2008 suggested there were almost half a million Eastern European citizens registered as working in this country with almost two-thirds of them coming from Poland.

Some of the difficulties relating to assessing how many Poles are in the UK comes from the fact that there are differing ways of calculating the figures. The Labour Force Survey and the International Passenger Survey are two but both are flawed because they tend to rely on random samples rather than solid accurate figures. The latter also relies solely upon arrivals at the main London airports and the Channel Tunnel, ignoring those entering Britain by road and through provincial airports.

Other figures come from the Worker Registration Scheme which was introduced in 2004 to regulate A8 citizens who were looking to work in the UK. This scheme also had failings, notably because it never covered the many thousands of Poles who declared themselves to be self-employed. The National Insurance Registration also produced information on Poles in the UK and was found perhaps to be more accurate in that it combined NI figures with other local statistics including the number of Polish births and the number of Polish citizens on the electoral register.

Wiktor Moszczynski of the Federation of Poles of Great Britain gave his own estimate at the end of 2008 as being in the region of 800,000 but stressed that many Poles came over and gained work even if they were not registered to do so. He also thought that up to a million came over in a temporary capacity to do seasonal work before returning home.

For legal advice with Polish language translation contact No win No fee claims lawyers at Winston Solicitors LLP or visit Twitter @claimsconnexion. Polish speaking compensation specialists.