ARE the people of Devizes aware that we are in imminent danger of losing our Spitalcroft allotments forever?

The main criterion which has kept the developer at bay until now was the onus put on it by our council to provide an appropriate alternative site for allotments.

Hitchings, the developer, put the land on Windsor Drive forward.

A review of the site and the soil samples led both the council and the Government inspector to deem it unsuitable for such use.

Now another Government inspector, who answers to the deputy PM John Prescott, has simply overridden the previous decision and approved the Windsor Drive site.

Our own elected council and our MP Michael Ancram are against

Spitalcroft being developed.

It makes you wonder what is the point of having local councils if central government can simply override the wishes of the people and their elected representatives?

The land was given to the people of Devizes more than 100 years ago. It is a perfect site for allotments as well as other badly needed leisure amenities.

Once that land is built on it will be lost to the people of Devizes forever.

Our local councils have both the power and the desire to put a compulsory purchase order on the land to safeguard it and put it to the best possible use for the community. What they do not have is the money.

Let us join with the council to

finance such an initiative.

Let us apply for a lottery grant to help us to buy it back.

Let us join together to buy it by private purchase.

Let us do any or all of these things but let's do something.

I will start the ball rolling by committing £500 to a Spitalcroft fund over the next five years. Who will join me?

From a pensioner not rich, but angry.

M ALSTON

Devizes