SINCE he was a teenager Steven Brady has enjoyed tending to an allotment first with his mother and later on his own plot.

And in April this year he wanted to expand his pastime by taking on neighbouring ground, which had been left vacant by an elderly gentleman who no longer tended to the area.

Mr Brady, from Andover, approached the then warden at Old Winton Road allotments and was told that it had come up for rental, but he would have to contact owners Andover Town Council.

The tenant emailed the council and that is where, he says, matters became “pathetic”.

“I emailed the council saying can I have this allotment, I want to put a polytunnel on it and wanted to make it crystal clear before I started,” Mr Brady said.

It was not until the beginning of May the authority told him he could not have the plot.

“I basically asked them why. I had cleared gas bottles and was trying to save them £50 per year in renting the plot and £200 in clearing it, which was what they pay to have it cleared ready for a new tenant.”

The council told Mr Brady that it was chasing the current tenant for unpaid fees and that is why he was not allowed the plot.

In the weeks that followed they then used the excuse that they did not let half plots as he wished to only take up half this year, but Mr Brady says around the same time the authority let a half plot.

“It became email tennis, they wouldn’t tell me any reason why they wouldn’t let me have this plot.” And the ground remained vacant, he added: “That’s when it started getting on my nerves.”

Mr Brady decided to make a complaint about one of the council’s allotment officers, but was met with an email from town clerk Wendy Coulter before he could. Ms Coulter later determined it should be directed to the chair of the allotments committee Councillor Alison Watts.

“I wrote back to her with a raft of questions and asked her to answer these and she [Cllr Watts] said she was going to take it to the allotments committee, and I got a 50-word handwritten note saying that the committee had upheld the decision.”

Mr Brady said that the note did not explain why he was unable to take on the plot and he has yet to have a clear answer from the council.

“It depresses me quite significantly, it is the one thing I have that isn’t related to anything else. I work in London so it is nice to have the allotment.”

Mr Brady has said that he has not tended to his allotment since the issues with the council began as it stressed him out.

The Advertiser contacted the council for a comment but it was unable to provide a response as the town clerk was on holiday.