Mrs Smith certainly hit the nail on the head (Letters, August 28).

I, too, have an allotment on Weald site and last year was offered the allotment opposite mine by the elderly couple who were giving it up.

I went through the official channels and was told I'd be put on the waiting list.

When I questioned this, I was told in no uncertain terms that there were no empty allotments, despite my insistence that there were loads.

I put my request in writing. All through the winter and spring I watched a beautiful allotment succumb to weeds.

In late April, I again confronted the allotment department and went through the same arguments.

I was then told this allotment had been let on January 1.

Imagine my surprise when, the very next day, friends phoned me up to say they'd been offered this very allotment - no doubt the council wanted to get me off its back quickly.

Uncultivated allotments are left to become a complete wilderness which is very offputting to newcomers.

The council no longer rotovates empty allotments, quite rightly, as this only chops up and increases perennial weeds, but they could strim them to make starting up easier.

They deny any policy of allowing allotments to remain empty in order to move everyone over to one part of the site and develop the rest but, quite honestly, nobody believes them.

It's about time the use of allotments was actively promoted to community groups, collectives, the unemployed and so on as a means of producing healthy, organic produce very cheaply - as well as being a pleasant environment away from shops and traffic.

Or perhaps the council would rather see yet another supermarket on the site so we could increase their already obscene profits by buying their overpriced and overwrapped fruit and veg flown in from the other side of the world.

-Sue Baumgardt, Hove