SIR – Just weeks after a humiliating U-turn on the sale of the national forests the Conservative-led Government is to sell off allotments.

Section 23 of the 1908 Smallholdings and Allotments Act, which orders that councils must provide sufficient number of plots to local residents where there is demand, is on a target list of “burdensome” regulations that will be abolished.

The proposals could see local authorities, many of them strapped for cash under the Governmentimposed cuts, selling off allotment land for housing or even for profit to major companies.

The Government claims to be the greenest ever administration and wants us to embrace the Big Society.

This is contemptuous as a sense of community already exists with allotment plot-holders.

Once again the mask has fallen and the true face of Conservatism is on view.

The [Margaret] Thatcher comment “There is no such thing as society” is what they believe now as much as then – the last time they tried to return our country to the Victorian era.

RICHARD BOORN
Worcester