ALLOTMENT holders have told how they’re being evicted from their land – because the council says they already have gardens.
Roger Bridgeman, who had waited 30 years to get his own allotment, says Woodbridge Town Council are chucking them out “out of the blue”.
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The council in Suffolk say they are serving eviction notices to holders who have had their plots for more than five years to shorten its waiting list – because they have “good-sized gardens already”.
They also claim that allotment holders had always been on rolling 12-month contracts – and that there was never any guarantee they would have them for life.
But the tenants are shocked that they have been kicked off their land that they have put love and care into.
Roger told The BBC: “I was absolutely shocked – some of our members were in floods of tears.”
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He added: “We are really upset because we were issued with an eviction notice and it came totally out of the blue, there had been no discussion from the town council.
“People opened their mail on Friday morning to be told they’ve been given a notice to quit.”
And South West Counties Allotment Association , a charity which campaigns for and supports allotment holders nationwide say that they have never seen people chucked out at the drop of a hat.
Their director Ayeesha Hooper told The Telegraph: “No wonder the plot holders are upset.
“These are people’s lives, their allotments mean everything to them, and they have spent so much time and money making them what they are.
“Allotment law states [councils] have a duty to provide if the demand is there. It all seems very underhand and unfair in my opinion.”
Currently Britain is facing a huge waiting list – with lockdowns during the pandemic driving demand.
Latest research shows that waiting lists across England have grown to 100,000 people – with some people already waiting for decades.
Woodbridge Council said: “The boundaries of the town cannot expand: more and more green space has been developed on, and it has been increasingly clear that it is unfair that 18 people, three of whom are residents from outside the town, and who, in some cases already have good-sized gardens already, should claim right to so much land for decades, when so many people with no chance of gardening can be stuck on waiting lists for decades.”
