The past decade has seen a boom in allotment gardening. People keen to grow organic food are queuing for plots, yet the number available, estimated at about a quarter of a million, is falling as pressure grows to build on them to provide much-needed housing.

In London, 39 allotment sites have been lost since 1997, and only seven created — leaving an estimated 4,300 people on waiting lists across the capital. Although the 1908 Small-holding and Allotments Act requires local authorities to create allotments if approached by a group of six or more people in a borough, the sites being created are typically much smaller than those they replace.

In Bath, budding gardeners have to wait up to four years for the most popular allotments; in Bolton, Lancashire, all 37 sites have waiting lists; and the only two in well-heeled Henley-on-Thames are full. Not surprisingly, the greatest demand is in inner cities, where more people live in flats. “Some of my members say that, for the first time in memory, their sites are full and they have waiting lists,” says Geoff Stokes, secretary of the National Society of Allotment & Leisure Gardeners.

So, why is this simple mismatch between supply and demand across much of Britain being ignored by local authorities, which own about 85% of allotment land (with the rest owned by private companies)? Gardening makes people happy and healthy; a “parenting strategy” unveiled by the government earlier this month even urged fathers to work with their children on allotments as a way of improving family bonds. If allotments foster national wellbeing, then doesn’t it make sense to preserve rather than destroy them? Not, apparently, at Manor Garden, in east London, where 80 furious plot-holders — some of whom have gardened there for 50 years — are fighting to save their allotments. Unless a miracle happens soon, they will have to grow their leeks and potatoes elsewhere. A compulsory purchase order has been issued and evictions begin on April 2.

The site is to form part of the 2012 Olympic Park and, after the Games, the Legacy Park. Despite vigorous protests and the gathering of more than 7,000 signatures on a petition to the prime minister, the authorities responsible, the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) and the London Development Authority (LDA), are not budging.

The LDA, which is responsible for buying land for the Olympics, tried to buy a temporary site for the allotment-holders, a mile away, but when it sought planning permission to turn the land into allotments, Waltham Forest Council, which has planning responsibility for the patch in question, rejected the application. (The LDA has appealed.)

The authority says it will create new permanent plots after the games, but it is not clear how large they will be or where they will be located — and this won’t be for another five years. In the meantime, the plot-holders, many of whom are elderly, will see their gardens make way for a pedestrian concourse between stadiums.

Visiting the site, you can understand why it evokes such passion. Manor Garden sits on a sliver of land between two tributaries of the River Lea. The entrance is just off the industrial no man’s land of Waterden Road, but across the river and through the gate is a different world — a small piece of countryside where wildlife flourishes and city noise is just a distant hum.

The allotments were created at the turn of the previous century by Arthur Villiers, a wealthy old Etonian and director of Barings Bank who set up boys’ clubs for deprived children. The plots, on his Eton Manor estate, were created for their parents. Today, a thriving multicultural community grows food, shares and swaps seeds, and interacts in a way unique to allotment life.

Sam Clark, owner of the top London restaurant Moro, has worked the soil at Manor Garden for six years, and waited four years to secure a plot. “It’s an incredibly special and romantic place, and we come here with our family as often as we can,” he says. “I have had some of the best-tasting fruit and vegetables I’ve ever eaten on these allotments — it’s been quite an eye-opener. The irony is that we’ve got this wonderful utopian island and it is being taken away by the Olympics, which has so many of the same ideals.”

Manor Garden is on the northern edge of the Olympic Park, part of the wider area of regeneration in the Lower Lea Valley, about which Ken Living-stone, the mayor of London, has said: “That legacy of unrivalled green open spaces, interwoven by the valley’s waterways, will be the envy of the world.”

Not everyone is convinced. David Mackay, one of the architects of the acclaimed 1992 Barcelona Olympic Village, is scathing about the plans. “The idea of recovering the natural features of the valley has escaped the Olympic authorities,” he wrote recently in the journal Planning in London. “Unfortunately, London has lost this opportunity by deciding to cover the existing recreation facilities with the silliest architecture seen for years, with no real concern for a legacy.”

He supports the Manor Garden campaign, which is being led by Julie Sumner, 46. Sumner, who supervises antenatal courses for the NHS, has had a plot there for 12 years. “We hope that the allotments can be incorporated into the Olympic plan,” she says. “We think it could be a real showcase for something that’s uniquely British, at the same time demonstrating the ideals of sustainability and multiculturalism that are part of the 2012 bid.“Most of our people live in flats, so it’s gut-wrenching for them to think of leaving. One family even scattered their father’s ashes on their plot because they thought these allotments would be here for ever.”

The campaigners have developed proposals to save, develop and enlarge the site by creating expanded “growing spaces” for schools, rehabilitation centres or other institutions, educational facilities and an affordable farmers’ market. “If we manage to change the Olympic Deliverty Authority’s way of thinking, it could be significant for the whole area,” Sumner says.

The authorities are not budging. “What they are asking for is just not possible,” says Andreas Christophorou, of the London Development Authority. “We are talking about the largest construction site in Europe, and from health and safety, and security, perspectives, it can’t work.”

Despite its history, its thriving community, its unique geographical position and its flourishing wildlife, Manor Garden has no legal protection. Under the 2006 act that set it up, the Olympic authority was given powers to overrule any allotment law or covenant in order to build games facilities.

And the problem is not unique to Manor Garden. Allotment legislation is so archaic that it doesn’t always provide the protection sites need. In the first half of the 20th century, allotment land was labelled either “statutory” or “temporary”. The statutory sites were protected by the 1925 Allotments Act, which ruled that councils must obtain ministerial permission to sell them for development. This still stands, but, 80 years on, there is widespread uncertainty about the status of many sites, as the original paperwork can be hard to find.

Authorities anxious for cash can take advantage of such uncertainty. “Far too many councils declare their sites as ‘temporary’ because they do not have the faintest idea why they were purchased in the first place,” Stokes says. Land seen as neglected or disused is more likely to gain development planning permission, so allotment-holders must keep plots neat and productive.

Allotments have been part of the fabric of British society for more than 150 years. The 1845 General Enclosure Act stipulated that land be set aside by councils as “field gardens for the labouring poor”. They have supported millions through lean economic times: the number of plots peaked at 1.5m during the second world war. The latest return to the land has been driven by the organic food movement. As a result, the profile of the average allotment gardener has altered radically: plots are no longer the preserve of the working-class male. Families work alongside old-timers, and 40% of plot-holders are female; in 1960, it was just 2%.

Allotments promote sustainability and biodiversity, harbour wildlife, bring people together and are beneficial to the nation’s physical and mental health. Manor Garden could be a shining example of all these positive things, if only it were given the reprieve it needs.

- To find out more about the Manor Garden campaign, visit www.lifeisland.org. The National Society of Allotment & Leisure Gardeners, 01536 266576, www.nsalg.org.uk. Your Allotment by Clare Foster is published by Cassell (£12.99)

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