Please mend our tool shed

ALLOTMENT holders in Wargrave have urged the parish council to renovate their tool shed.

The current shed at the Woodclyffe allotments in Victoria Road has 64 lockers for the allotment holders to store their equipment but many have remained locked for years as people have moved on.

Nick Pritchard-Gordon, 46, who has owned an allotment for seven years, said: “The shed itself is not secure but the lockers are.

“There are only 64 lockers but there are 72 allotment holders and although not everybody wants to use them, the lockers themselves are too small for the amount of tools people would want to keep.

“There are also lots of lockers which are locked so you can’t use them.” Mr Pritchard-Gordon, of Victoria Road, added: “The allotment holders have been saying let’s do something with this.

“The parish council sometimes comes across as a bit paternalistic — they do what they do and we don’t get to know about it.”

The shed has been debated at council meetings for more than two years, with suggestions including converting it into a meeting room.

Ian Bradley, who recently conducted a survey of his fellow allotment holders, said the use of the shed was their top priority and they would prefer it to remain a tool shed.

Council chairman Richard Bush said: “We can’t do anything with the shed as there is stuff in it at the moment.

“We need to make sure that people who have stuff in there can take it out before we start. That’s a little further down the line and we must set up a working party.”

Meanwhile, work on the allotment site’s new toilet block could start in January.

Councillor Bush said: “Work has been approved and we are waiting on our contractor who has another job to do first. Once that is done it’s ready to go.

“You will have a vestibule with a toilet. There was a hold-up as we had trouble getting the right size door but we have got it now.”