ALLOTMENT holders facing eviction at a site in Coombe in Wotton-under-Edge have taken a significant step in defending the land by submitting a community asset application.

The Coombe Allotment and Leisure Gardeners Society has applied to Stroud District Council to register Coombe Allotments, which can be dated back as far as 1847, as a community asset.

Tenants, without prior warning, received a notice to quit the site within the year from their landlady Sue Ballinger in March.

Chairman and founding member of CALGS Norman Dadd, along with the rest of the group’s 200 members, hopes the registration will save the land from unwanted development.

He said: “If our allotments are registered as an asset of community value, the registration listing lasts for five years and will be an official recognition of the importance of this space, a place of huge importance to the village.”

The application received the full support of Wotton Town Council who have penned a letter to SDC to that effect.

CALGS say they have had no response from Mrs Ballinger or her solicitors, Loxley, to approaches for a meeting.

The group has now told Loxley that Mrs Ballinger’s stated intended use of the historic half-acre site for keeping horses would be opposed.

Founding member of the group Martin Clarke said that other legal questions were being pursued with the help of the National Allotments Society, which CALGS has joined.

Mr Clarke will be speaking on the situation at Coombe Allotments along with other allotment groups from Bristol and Watford at the Toby Buckland Garden Festival in Bowood, Wiltshire, on June 5, from 12 to 1pm.

Toby Buckland, the broadcaster and garden designer, offered the slot and a free display area to CALGS after seeing the group’s campaign on twitter – managed under the handle @FightforCoombe.

Mr Clarke said: “Our unexpected and unwelcome eviction problem has opened our eyes to many other sites in peril including both statutory council owned sites and private sites around Britain and we can all learn from each other.

“Wotton Town Council has been very supportive to Coombe and has sent a very strong letter of support to Stroud planners for our application.

“The council has its own waiting list for allotment plots which it cannot satisfy.”

It was on Saturday, March 21, when the tenants of the allotments, some of whom have been using the site for more than 40 years, first received the unexpected notice to quit from Mrs Ballinger via Loxley Solicitors.

When approached by the Gazette Mrs Ballinger declined to comment - however a letter sent by her to tenants stated that she required the land back to use as grazing land for her horses.

Mrs Ballinger has also submitted a recent application to SDC in a bid to change the use of a stable next to her home to a dwelling.

Keep up to date with CALGS' progress by following gazetteseries.co.uk and @FightforCoombe.

The Coombe community asset application can be viewed at www.stroud.gov.uk/PLO/community_asset.aspx