It started with a letter from Hayling Island Horticultural Society member Tom Pace to chairman Bill Biggs.

Tom complained he had been on the waiting list for an allotment since January 2008 but was told in February that the waiting list contained 112 names and he was still only number 67.

He believes that there are many more people who would like allotments but have not officially placed themselves on a waiting list.

Tom came from Bromley, in Kent, where he had allotments on a "self-running" site with a committee which collected rents and undertook lettings.

They also organised fencing, water supply and secure storage for common equipment such as motor mowers.

Tom wondered whether Hayling's Horticultural Society could arrange something similar.

But it was pointed out the council has a legal duty to provide allotments and only last year a new website to encourage allotments was set up by Parliament.

Mr Pace has written to Havant MP David Willetts about the problem.

Tom believes that with a waiting list this size Hayling needs 150 new plots of 10-pole size - allotments come in traditional measures - meaning at least a five-acre site.

He has suggested the field north of Mill Rythe schools, which - with its access to the road - would be ideal.

A combined use of a car park with parents ferrying children would be an extra advantage.

Mr Biggs took the complaint to West Hayling councillor Vic Pierce-Jones who went to council officers with a list of other possible allotment sites.

Some are on land owned by Havant Borough or Hampshire County Councils in locations accessible by car, such as the south-west end of the Hayling Billy Coastal Path, the middle of West Lane near the bend north of Daw Lane. near the Esso Garage and a meadow in Stoke.

He met with council officer, Rob Hill, and the portfolio holder for allotments, Hayling East Councillor David Collins, authorised inspections of the proposed sites.

Cllr Pierce-Jones also appealed for more ideas from residents for potential locations. Ideally they should be about two acres in size with accessible water supply and car parking.

Mr Hill said that seven years ago there were empty allotments in the borough, now there are no vacancies among Hayling's 60 plots at the site at the end of Palmerston Road - officially known as Gable Head- and a 95 per cent take up elsewhere in the borough.

The rent is about £30 per annum and they are inspected three times a year.

Existing tenants seem to be very appreciative and currently the allotments are in good order with a great variety of produce and initiatives.

As a result the turnover is very low, hence the long waiting lists. The trend these days is to offer smaller plots normally half sizes.

Some Islanders have been offered plots on the mainland but these are not popular because of the travel involved.

When Cllr Pierce-Jones raised the need for allotments in the borough at Havant Council meeting on February 17, he was informed by county council member David Keast that Hampshire has a standby fund of £600,000 to buy land for allotments if good sites can be found.

Borough council leader Tony Briggs reported that he was already in touch with county officials about the matter.


Fresh food behind renaissance in growing your own

PETER Tibble, whose family has been leading horticulturalists, greengrocers and florists on the Island for many years, believes the allotment movement today is driven by a fashionable demand for fresh, healthy food.

Demand originally reached a peak after the Second World War on the back of the Dig for Victory movement.

Returning servicemen seemed to yearn to return to the land which they had fought for so valiantly.

After a time some found the job too much for them. Some plots got a bad name, such as when someone built a "sort of igloo" there with mud clods.

But he says that the Palmerston Road site goes back decades. It is actually church land and was probably once the site of the old Hayling vicarage.

Its origins could even be traced back to the time when the manor of South Hayling was held by monks, originally from Jumièges in Normandy.

The hut - used as a trading centre by Hayling Island Horticultural Society - has features suggesting it had a use in those days, perhaps as a stable.

If anyone has any ideas about sites for new allotments, get in touch with the council or the Horticultural Society, or via the Hayling Islander.

A revival of interest in allotments by the National Trust was reported in The Times, on February 19 and an event about allotments was staged by Portsmouth Council at the New Theatre Royal, on February 27.