YOUNG and old marched on Eastleigh Civic Offices yesterday as they took their battle to save their allotments right to heart of local government.

Cabbage patches could be replaced by hundreds of homes if the council go ahead with a multi-million pound redevelopment plan.

Allotment land at Woodside Avenue, South Street and Monks Way are firmly in the planners' sights.

An angry army of allotment gardeners, determined to slam the brakes on the bricks and mortar invasion, converged on the Leigh Road offices with a convoy of wheelbarrows piled high with 10,000 letters of objections.

They were protesting at the borough's local plan which if given the go-ahead would see 62 per cent of the borough's current allotment space disappear under concrete.

And 226 allotment gardeners, which is 53 per cent of the borough's plot holders, would be turfed off their sites. Some of them have worked their allotments for 20,30 or even 40 years.

Yesterday scores of wheelbarrow protesters pushed home their "hands off our allotments" message by marching from the Woodside Avenue Allotment site along the busy Leigh Road to the civic offices.

One young Eastleigh family who were on the march to save their South Street allotment were Elly Swanbrow and Carlton Clements and four year-old Joshua and one-year-old Mazie Swanbrow.

Elly, 31, said:" This is the fifth year we have had our allotment and when you start it from scratch it takes a long time to get together.

But Carlton said the alternative allotment site being suggested by the council would put them next to the motorway with poor soil. He said: " Where we are at the moment is a safe site and there is an area for the children to play."

Pat Towers, 69, who lives at Chandler's Ford, and has had an allotment at Woodside Avenue since 1976, said: "We do not want to move. You can grow fresh vegetables and save on household bills."

She added: "There is a great community spirit and everyone helps each other. All that would be destroyed."

Members of the Lakeside Residents Area Association also took part in the wheelbarrow protest which was organised by the Eastleigh and Bishopstoke Allotments Association. Allotments and open space next to the popular Lakeside Country Park are also threatened by development proposals.

Allotments association treasurer Ted Ingram said the huge support for the wheelbarrow protest reflected the strength of feeling against the council's plans.

He said: "Residents and allotments holders of Eastleigh delivered a damning verdict on the Borough Council's plan to build on three key allotment sites in the town and on strategic open space adjacent to popular Lakeside Country Park."

An Eastleigh Borough Council spokesman said: "We have received about 10,000 objections and they are objecting to the local plan. They will be registered and responded to and the objections will be fed into the local plan process."