Council accused of 'incompetence' over allotment handover holdup - but it says soil quality is to blame

The council says concerns about soil quality have been preventing the transfer of allotment land for community use, as part of a housing project in Leighton Buzzard, according to the local authority.

But residents fear the chance of having the plots has been lost permanently at the Heath Road site, part of the local Chamberlains Barn development for up to 950 homes – and say it’s down to “bureaucratic incompetence”.

A CBC spokesman explained: “The council would welcome the transfer of the Heath Road land for the local community. However, opinions have been expressed that the land isn’t good enough for future allotment holders because of the condition of the soil.

“CBC will continue talks with the developer to seek the best outcome for residents and to ensure any land made available for allotments is suitable for long-term community use.”

But residents told the local democracy reporting service: “When the cost of living is sky high and residents are languishing on two-year waiting lists for allotments, green space and the ability to grow our own food has never been more important.

“The community has lost this vital asset permanently not because the land was unsuitable as the council claims, but because of bureaucratic incompetence.”

When the residents complained officially about the lost allotments, CBC stated: “The transfer (of land) needed to be accepted by the council within three months. This didn’t happen because the site was substandard, and no further action is available to the local authority.”

Residents claim internal documents seen by the LDRS “prove CBC didn’t actively refuse the land over quality issues, and that rather it simply failed to communicate with the developer or its own lawyers for years until the legal deadline expired”.

Residents acknowledge: “…the topsoil is slightly thin in some areas, although the council’s commissioned soil verification report by consultancy Concertus concluded: ‘Remediation is unnecessary’ and ‘recommended adding some topsoil to reach the 0.30m depth, as the site was entirely viable’.”

“The Section 106 legal agreement stipulated that once the developer Arnold White Estates laid out the allotments and offered the transfer, CBC had exactly three months to accept it,” added the residents.

“If the council doesn’t comply with that deadline, the developer is legally entitled to keep the land free of restrictions. The transfer offer was made in July 2019. It took CBC six months until January 2020 to make its first contact with the developer’s solicitors.

“What followed was nearly three years of internal paralysis. Different council departments failed to take responsibility for the site.

“In September 2021, the developer’s solicitors wrote to the council saying: ‘We’re keen to complete the transfer of the allotment site … but the relevant departments in CBC simply don’t seem to want to engage’.

“CBC’s lawyer wrote to the council in December 2021 asking: ‘Are we to take just the school site? Is the allotment site not being included? Please can someone come back to me’.

“The developer’s solicitors wrote to CBC on June 1st 2022 confirming that it had ‘forfeited the ability to accept the transfers’ and that the allotment land is ‘no longer subject to the terms of the Section 106 agreement and can be dealt with by our client as required’.

“The council lost a fully viable community asset because it took too long to answer its emails.”