THE fate of Roeshot Hill Allotments is sealed.

As one of over 200 tenants on the Roeshot Hill Allotment Site I have watched the threat to our site from the North Christchurch Urban Extension with increasing foreboding.

The planning inspector has itemised her changes to the Core Strategy and Christchurch and East Dorset Councils (CEDC) have now circulated them for consultation with the various interested parties.

The modified strategy still ignores the wishes of Christchurch’s residents and the representations of the Association, with blanket development of nearly 1000 houses on Roeshot Hill still being planned, meaning loss of the allotments to current plot-holders and to future generations of residents.

In drawing up this strategy the council ignored the results of its 2012 consultation with the residents, and the council had only one subsequent meeting with Roeshot Hill Allotment Association (RHAA) – and that was at the request of the Association.

The council is obliged to provide an alternative site for the allotments but, of the four possible alternatives suggested by the council, three of them are in Hampshire and all of them are far less accessible than Roeshot Hill, particularly for those plot-holders reliant on public transport.

I am sure many other allotment tenants have never felt we were anything other than an annoying nuisance to be brushed aside in the march towards this ‘grand development’.

The simple solution of the allotments remaining at our existing site, at the heart of the community as the council’s own Allotment Strategy suggests, is pushed aside in the interests of short-term profit.

I wonder how many current Christchurch residents will want an allotment when the nearest plots are in Burton or in Hampshire around Hinton Admiral.

S GODLEY, Smugglers Wood Road, Christchurch