HELP!! when do allotments become statutory

[Gilli Bean]

The local Town Council want to sell part of our allotment site for housing. We've challanged this but today we got a letter saying our site was not statutory despite the fact allotments have been on the site longer than living memory. We were sent a copy of a letter today from a solictor who said there was nothing in the deeds (dating back to the 1930's) to say the allotments were statutory therefore the CLG do not need to give consent for disposal. The Town Council will no doubt be smiling with glee.

This will have implications for many sites - needless to say we will be contacting the NSALG. Can anyone help?
Thank you

[BAK]

NSALG is your best bet. They have a legal adviser. They also did a survey (10 years or more ago) on whether sites were statutory or not ... so they have info from that time for your site.

Without getting into legal minutiae, a rough explanation of the term statutory is that it indicates that there is a document, possibly a covenant, relating to the site that limits the use of the land to allotments. The fact that allotments may have been there for several hundred years does not, I am afraid, magically convey statutory status on them.

Good luck with the fight.