FORMER allotment holders have won their battle to have the plots they were evicted from returned.

Councillors unanimously agreed to reinstate the Briarfields allotments, in Hartlepool, at a full meeting of the cabinet on Thursday evening.

The council had evicted the gardeners in October 2003 and flattened the land as part of a plan to sell the prime location, off Elwick Road, for redevelopment.

However, the Local Government Ombudsmen criticised the move and said that the gardeners should be reinstated on the site as soon as possible.

It is expected that the land will be ready for use as allotments by May 1, subject to planning approval.

With the land allowed to go to waste, the council must also pay for it to be brought back to its original state.

The decision to restore the 12 allotment gardens could cost taxpayers up to £75,000.

Allotment tenants' secretary Peter Pickens, a plot holder for 30 years, was delighted by the decision.

He said: "I think they will be better. There will be a car park, which we never had before, and there will be space for a communal hut.

"It has been designed jointly with the council officers and ourselves.

"We thought about what we would like and they have agreed with all of our suggestions and made some of their own."

However, Dr Pickens added: "This is not compensation for being off the allotments for two full summers.

"There are still some who feel badly about it.

"My job is to encourage them to feel good about what will happen now and to look to the future and make the site as good as we can."

"There will be some crops that we not be able to grow that, in a full season, we would have been able to grow.

"But there are still plenty of things we can still grow this year."