If you tolerate this, your bean plants will be next….

Gloucester City Council initially told us that finding one contaminant above the 2002 safe levels rendered any site unsuitable to be cultivated land so it had to be taken out of use immediately and forever.

When the Estcourt Close results came through there was one massively high lead reading, way over the EU safe level. The council changed their mind and said it was a 'hot spot' on an otherwise acceptable site. We agreed with them, but this did explain why they appeared to have sat on the results for a month.

Weeks later two of our members found a huge pile of rubbish next to the shed on their new safe Estcourt plot; the council had to employ specialist contractors to remove asbestos and chemicals from it.

As allotments tend to be on marginal bits of ground, opposite gasworks, near railway lines and rubbish dumps any council that wants to get rid of them is in with a good chance of finding something to speed up the process. It usually takes a year's notice and permission from the government to shut a site down, but the Ham was classified as a temporary one and thus unprotected.

If you have an allotment check the status of the site; we only found out about ours when it was too late.