Row blows up between 100-year-old Doncaster allotments group and 50-year-old boat club over parking
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Users of the Strawberry Island allotments, in Wheatley, which marked their centenary this year, have been told they will no longer be able to park in spaces that they have traditionally used at the neighbouring boat club, which was 50 years old last year, because they have been using too many spaces, to the detriment of boat club members.
Charlie Bennett, chairman of Strawberry Island Allotment Association said: “The boat club has put up notices saying that we will have no access for our vehicles from May 14. It’s terrible.
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Hide Ad"They are saying it’s all their land and they pay rent for it, and it’s not looking promising for us. We are planning to picket the main gate.
"Some of our lads have ripped the notices down after seeing them put up.
"We don’t cause any problems for the boat club. There are people who travel from Armthorpe and Dunsville, and there are a lot of double yellow lines on Milethorn Road. It will cause problems for people having deliveries like compost."
Strawberry Island Boat Club’s commodore, Paul Mellors, said its members had paid for the hard surfacing on the car park and had tried to reach a formal agreement with the allotment society over parking, which would have provided them with six parking spaces, but the allotment users would not meet them.
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Hide AdHe said in the past its members have had situation where they have not been able to access their boats, and it was the club’s responsibilty to protect its members.
But they had received no response to their offer, so had set a deadline of May 14.
"We have had an extraordinary number of cars parked on our land,” he said. “It has been a point of contention for years.”
“If agreement can’t be reached by then, we’ll be restricting access,” he said. “We think we’re being reasonable, offering parking that we don’t have to. The offer is still on the table until May 14.”
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Hide AdHe said the allotment holders would still have access to their plots by foot.