Residents back allotments fight (From Gazette & Herald)

Residents back allotments fight

A MOVE to safeguard the future of allotments in a North Yorkshire market town has won unanimous backing from scores of residents.

Kirkbymoorside Town Assembly agreed to push for four acres of land to be made the subject, if necessary, of a compulsory purchase order.

About 50 residents heard claims by Coun Barry Brook, secretary of the Kirkbymoorside Allotments Association, that the land at Gillamoor Road was under threat of development by its owners, North Yorkshire County Council.

When the industrial estate at Kirby Mills was built the town lost its last statutory allotment land and there was now only one site left.

"Unfortunately we are tenants of the county council who regard it as potential building land," said Coun Brook.

"While they wait for that to happen they are bent on extracting as much rent from us as possible. We are advised that the land is little more than grade three agricultural land which, in farming terms, would have a much lower rental value."

The county authority had given the association a ten-year lease last year, but a number of legal issues had been changed to the disadvantage of the association, he said.

The assembly heard that the county council had told the association there were "various issues" to be resolved.

"We are justly concerned that constant pressure from the council will have the effect of driving us from the site," said Coun Brook.

"The only way to secure it for future generations is for it to become statutory allotment land. "We have 55 tenants on the site, and all the allotments are occupied," he said.

At the meeting, Kirkbymoorside residents gave full backing to a motion that the town council should ask Ryedale District Council to buy the allotment land and, if that failed, to acquire it through compulsory purchase.

Coun Gaynor de Barr said: "Once the allotments are lost we shall never get them back."

She said she would ask for the issue to be raised at the meeting of the county council's Ryedale area committee.

The issue will now go before the next meeting of the town council on May 17.

A Ryedale District Council spokeswoman said she could not comment on whether the council would be prepared to buy the land, as Kirkbymoorside Town Council had not yet been in contact on the issue.

North Yorkshire County Council spokesman Tony Webster said: "We are discussing the details of a ten-year lease with the allotments association.

"Some details (of the lease) still have to be resolved.

"But there are no issues that can't be resolved by sitting round a table and talking it through.

"We are not putting pressure on anybody. The ball is in their court."

Updated: 10:11 Wednesday, May 05, 2004