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No watering your vegetables, says Thames Water
Last updated at 23:52pm on 15.04.07
Even vegetables could come under the hosepipe ban if Thames Water has its way
Thames Water has outraged allotment holders with a plan to stop them from watering their vegetables.
If the controversial water company has its way, holders will lose their right to irrigate their land when hosepipe bans are in force.
Thames, which has come under fire for losing 200 million gallons of water a day from leaking pipes, says that tending allotments with hosepipes is a "non-essential use of water".
It is lobbying the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs for a change in water laws dating back to 1945.
At present, council allotment holders are exempt from hosepipe bans because their land is treated as public rather than private.
Thames spokeswoman Hilary Bennett said: "Council allotments should have been covered by the laws and we just want the final word on it.
"In the end, we want to ensure as much water is saved a possible."
But the National Society of Allotment and Leisure Gardeners is furious with the plan to include plot holders in bans.
It says many holders rely on allotments to feed their families and that it will be impossible for gardeners to grow crops without hosepipes.
The society's secretary Geoff Stokes said that Thames Water "could take a running jump".
He said: "These are people trying to grow their own food and their annual budget is based around what they are likely to produce.
"The prospect of allotment holders seeing all their crops shrivel and die is very sad."
Paul Neary, who has an allotment in Chichester, West Sussex, said he would be forced to give up growing salad crops and peas if hosepipe bans were extended to allotments.
He said: "I think it's a ridiculous plan. People really do care about what they eat and being to grow food themselves.
"It's only because Thames Water leaks so much that they're trying to squeeze everyone under the sun.
"If they do get allotments reclassified as private land, then who owns them - the council or the tenant?
"And who's going to police this ban?"
Jamie Oliver fever and the five-veg-a-day mantra have seen allotments shed their fusty image. The trend towards growing-your-own has sent edible-seed sales soaring.
Overall spending on seeds of edible plants has rocketed 31 per cent in the last five years compared to a fall of 32 per cent in sales of flower seeds. Devon-based Suttons Seeds has reported that vegetable seed sales account for 70 per cent of all sales.
Thames - Britain's biggest water company with eight million customers - imposed a hosepipe ban last Spring that lasted throughout the summer.
The company has the worst record for leakages in the country, having failed to hit its leakage targets since 2000.
But it has said that it is "extremely unlikely" that there will be a ban this summer after a wetter winter than average.
Reader views (4)
Not again, a week of sunshine and the Thames water morons are banning us from using water, will we get a rebate?
- Brian, Swindon
It really is time we stopped being sentimental about allotments. They are rarely cost effective or efficient. The users could make far more profitable use of their time if they purchased their needs from properly established outlets ie. supermarkets. Most of the allotments also occupy land that would be far better used for housing or commercial use.
- Patrick, London
If Thames can stop people from watering their allotments, shouldn't Thames then at least pay the rent for that allotment for the year? And if they had to, it would concentrate their minds on the real problem - that a over a third of London's water leaks out of their pipes and never makes it to our taps.
- Nigel, London
"No watering the vegetables" - but won't the board of Thames Water get very thirsty?
- Trevor Roll, London
