Sir, – You recently published an excellent article, by Hannah Stephenson, in which she outlined the threats currently facing many council allotment sites, where the land is being taken for building. Here in Bedale our Masham Road allotment site is not owned by the council but is owned by the church and managed by their Diocesan Board of Finance, based in Leeds.

However, having the church as our landlord has sadly not protected us from the threat of being moved off our historic site and re-located to an out-of-town field which we do not want. The success of Bedale allotments is due their location within the community on a very safe site.

In spite of us explaining this to the board, plus many letters of protest from local people and from St Gregory’s Church PCC, the board still appears to want to sell to developers.

This uncertainty about the long term future is hampering improvements to our site. We can not apply for grants to finance such projects as, creating raised beds to enable gardening by people with mobility problems or developing a nature area for the benefit of children. Years of uncertainty causes members to delay planting fruit trees or making other long term investments, so the value of their plots is diminished.

Hannah Stephenson’s article was titled “This summer make sure you don’t lose the plot”. This is just what we hope to achieve by starting a petition.

So far we have obtained about 1,300 signatures and have been much encouraged by the level of public support for protection of allotments and retention of such green spaces within communities. So we hope that as the number of signatures increases the Diocese will realise that sale of this land could do untold harm to the public image of the church.

So, let’s hope the Diocese does not “Lose the plot” and that I am able to keep gardening my plot!

JOHN BURTON

Bedale.