Allotment holders in Oakley will not move plots (From Andover Advertiser)

Allotment holders in Oakley will not move plots

1:00pm Monday 21st January 2013 in Basingstoke By Emily Roberts, Chief Reporter

ALLOTMENT holders in Oakley are declining to move their vegetable patches.

As previously reported in The Gazette, Oakley Parish Council was approached by the Malshanger Estate, from which it leases the Station Road allotments, offering the use of another piece of land to the rear of Dell Farm, which could accommodate more allotments.

But the parish council has declined the offer and will instead try to re-negotiate its current lease, which ends in April 2014. Speaking at Oakley and Deane Parish Council meeting, Councillor John Strawbridge said: “We thank them for the offer of the new site, but it wasn’t appropriate, or supported by the allotment holders.”

The parish council has leased the allotments in Station Road since the 1970s, and has just over a year left on its current seven-year lease. But Malshanger Estate previously told the council it will only renew the lease on an annual basis.