Hypocrisy in spades at allotment site!

A report to tomorrow's Boston Town Area Committee rekindles memories of the long-forgotten (doubtless the intention) Broadfield Lane allotment site.
In May last year, the Boston Standard reported that disgruntled allotment-holders attended a special meeting to hear the secretary of the charity which owns their allotments outline detailed plans to sell off a "large chunk" of the site to Longhurst Homes.
The charity hoped to make more than half-a-million pounds from the land sale, to devote to worthy causes around the Boston area.
The bidders, Longhurst, hoped to buy around a third of the site from Boston Municipal Charities to build 60 new affordable houses.
At the meeting, Councillor Ray Newell, who represents Staniland South ward where the allotments lie, warned: "The system that often operates with these 'land grabs' is that first the developer takes one third, then they come back for another third, and in the end they take the lot."
But the charity's secretary, Katherine Bunting, said they would 'never' sell the rest of the land for development, and it was suggested that all existing allotment-holders could be given plots on the remainder of the Broadfield Lane site.
Fast forward to Wednesday night's BTAC meeting.
After summarising the events leading up to the eviction notices being served on the Broadfield Lane allotment holders, a report adds: "In February 2008 Boston Municipal Charities informed us that they required possession of the whole site and that tenants would no longer be able to move to the area not designated for the proposed development. All Broadfield Lane tenants are now relocated on five different sites around the borough."
Whilst the charity has apparently indicated that land may still be available on the site to use as allotments the trustees of the charity are currently unable to make a long term commitment regarding the rest of the site until they know the outcome of Longhurst’s planning application or the extent of the proposed development.
The committee is being recommended to pay to clear the Broadfield Lane site and "to avoid any adverse or damaging publicity with regard to the state of the site" - which has an amount of asbestos that requires disposal.
We highlighted the problems of locating so many starter homes in one place, as well as in the heartland of the town's traffic problems at the time of the initial debate.
Now it looks as though the number of homes might increase almost threefold.
Let us hope that if only to highlight such a spectacular piece of hypocrisy by a so-called "charity" (whose members fought successfully to remain anonymous) that as much manure descends on this allotment scheme as is possible.

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