The Combe Down allotments have been shut since November 2025. On 12 November Cabinet is asked to back compulsory purchase as a last resort to bring them back.

Bath and North East Somerset Council wants the option of buying land at Combe Down compulsorily to bring back the village’s allotments. They were used for more than 130 years and have stood empty for almost a year.

Cabinet is asked on Thursday 12 November to approve the use of compulsory purchase powers “in principle” (Cabinet report). The council says this would be a last resort. It would rather buy the land by agreement, but its three offers to the private landowner have all been turned down.

How Combe Down lost its allotments

The site off Church Road had 64 plots. It was first leased to Monkton Combe Parish Council in 1895, then to the City of Bath and then to B&NES. The report says school children and people from a nearby care centre also visited it.

Its last lease, signed in 2019, let the landowner end it at three months’ notice. The landowner served notice on 30 September 2024, and the council had to be out by 30 November 2025. Plot holders were told to leave by 31 October 2025. The site has been blocked off ever since.

Three offers, all refused

The council has spent more than 18 months trying to buy land for a new site by agreement:

  • 6 February 2025: a formal offer, based on an independent valuation. Rejected.
  • 9 December 2025: a higher offer. Rejected on 13 January 2026.
  • 12 June 2026: a further offer on a redrawn boundary, after a new valuation. Not accepted.

The amounts are in an appendix the council has kept private. The report does not name the landowner. It does say the same owner holds the neighbouring Upper Lawn Quarry, which the Local Plan allocates for extracting Bath stone.

The new site would also need access over a road leased by Monkton Combe School, which also leases the field next door. The council says it is in talks with the school about its safeguarding, access and parking concerns.

Is there the demand?

The council has a legal duty to provide enough allotments where it thinks there is demand. It cites:

  • 532 people waiting for plots across the district, with every waiting list full
  • 84 people who said in a survey that they would take a plot at a new Combe Down site, a mix of former plot holders and people on its waiting list

Councillor Paul Roper, the cabinet member responsible, said: “Our preference always has been and remains one where we reach an agreement.” Compulsory powers “would be a last resort”, he said, but the council wants “to keep that option available while negotiations continue” (B&NES Council, 4 November 2026).

What happens next

A yes on 12 November does not make a compulsory purchase order. It lets officers keep negotiating and prepare the legal groundwork. The council would then need a second Cabinet decision to make an order, with the final boundary, a statement of reasons and the funding set out.

The map with the report is indicative only. The council says the land and access rights it needs could still change.

What it means for you

  • If you had a plot, or are on the Combe Down waiting list, nothing changes yet. A new site is still at least one more Cabinet decision away.
  • To join a waiting list anywhere in the district, see the council’s allotments pages. Every list is currently full.
  • Watch the meeting. Cabinet meets at 6.30pm on 12 November and is streamed on the council’s YouTube channel.

The same Cabinet meeting considers the council’s £14.8 million budget gap for next year.