Loss of land: The Council takes away landowners after only five years

The city council served eviction notices on plot owners to reduce the waiting list.

The Woodbridge City Council in Suffolk sent a notice “suddenly” to landowners who have had their plots for five years or more.

The council said it could not acquire land for additional land, and made an “extremely difficult decision” to shorten the queue.

It also claimed that tenants always had 12-month contracts and that there were never lifetime rights.

“We are really upset because they issued us an eviction notice and it came out quite clear, there was no discussion from the city council. People opened their post office on Friday morning to tell them they had received notice to give up,” Roger Bridgeman, the owner of the plot, told the BBC.

“I was completely shocked – some of our members were in tears.”

He said he waited 30 years get your own assignment.

Ayeesha Hooper, director of the South West Counties Allotment Association, a charity that fights for and supports award holders across the country, told The Telegraph that she had not encountered such a move in her 14 years in the role.

“No wonder the plot owners are upset. These are people’s lives, their allocation means everything to them, and they have spent so much time and money that they are what they are, “she said.

“The Allocation Act says [councils] they are obliged to provide if there is a demand. In my opinion, it all seems very covert and unfair. “

The Woodbridge Council told The Telegraph: “The city’s borders cannot expand: there are more and more green spaces and it is becoming increasingly clear that it is unfair that 18 people, three of whom are out of town, and in some cases already have large gardens, we should have been claiming the right to so much land for decades, when so many people without the opportunity to garden have been stuck on waiting lists for decades. “

Waiting lists have grown to 100,000 people in England

The UK is facing a significant shortage of plots, with demand for small pieces of land continue to grow. The pandemic and subsequent imprisonment increased further.

According to recent research, more than 100,000 people in England are on waiting lists for assignments. Six worlds have had waiting lists for more than a decade.

Camden County Council was found to have the worst waiting period, at 17.5 years.

Campaigns blame blaming cuts in local government funding, making it difficult for councils to acquire new land for allocations and forcing some to sell land.

According to Imperial College London, between 2013 and 2020 41 the plots were closed in London despite the fact that demand has increased by 400 percent since 2006.

Many councils, including Woodbridge, have resorted to dividing land into smaller plots to meet demand.

They said they are also planning a community garden to give more residents access to outdoor facilities.