Ref. 28558-08ALLOTMENT holders in Swindon have been told there are no plans to level their plots for building land.

But Swindon Council does admit that it may reduce the number of allotments.

Only 40 per cent of several hundred across the borough are currently in use, despite rents ranging from only £3 to £31.20 per year.

Letters signed by John Short, director of Swindon Services, have been landing on the doormats of allotment holders across the borough.

They say in part: "Swindon Council is about to embark on a major review of allotments and their provision within Swindon.

"As an allotment holder, we would like to take this opportunity to invite you to a public consultation meeting to discuss the long term future for allotments."

The meeting is to be held at the Oasis Leisure Centre in North Star on Wednesday, January 21, beginning at 7pm.

Among the recipients of the letter were David Moors, 54, of Pinehurst Road, and his 57-year-old wife, Susan.

The couple have grown vegetables on two allotments on the Pickards Field site behind their home for 11 years.

The land produces enough vegetables to last them throughout the winter.

Mr Moors, who recently accepted redundancy from a finance company, said: "My wife also has a flower garden and she is always out on the allotments.

"The allotment users are a good group of people and we have a laugh together.

"The trouble is that the letter does not say what they are planning to talk about at the meeting.

"I'm worried that they want to build on it.

"During the summer, people with clipboards came to look at the allotments.

"They said they were from the council but they wouldn't give a proper answer to what they were doing."

However, Coun Fionuala Foley (Con, Old Town and Lawn) gave a categorical assurance that the council had no intention of closing any allotments against the wishes of those occupying them.

But she pointed out that only 40 per cent of the council's allotments were in use, with the rest simply lying empty, and admitted that a possible option might be to authorise development of this unused land.

Coun Foley also said she would like to see more people coming forward to use allotments.

She added: "If the allotment holders want to leave everything as it is now, that's fine."

Barrie Hudson