ALLOTMENT holders are being forced to give up their plots to make room for a cemetery expansion.

Half of the 50 allotments at Cemetery Fields in Northallerton will be lost when the neighbouring graveyard expands to provide enough burial space for the next 40 years.

So far efforts to find alternative sites have proved fruitless, prompting fears that Northallerton could face a severe shortage of allotments.

The Northallerton and Romanby Joint Burial Committee is aiming to create additional graveyard space in Cemetery Fields under a £226,000 project. Existing burial space in Northallerton is expected to run out in three years and landscaping work on the new cemetery could take up to a year.

Maurice Aislabie, chairman of Northallerton Allotment Association, said they had always been aware they would have to leave the site at some time.

But he admitted it was still disappointing to be losing the allotments when demand was still high.

He said: "We are concerned about it but there is nothing we can do and we don't have any objections to what the burial committee are doing.

"We have been there for 26 years and it is our only site in the town but we have always known that at some stage we would have to leave.

"We have been promised we will get half of it back at some stage. My concern is that there are a lot of people who virtually live on their allotments and they will be left without anywhere to go."

He said the association had approached both Northallerton Town Cou-ncil and Hambleton District Council over possible alternative sites but had been told none were available.

Cliff Wilkinson, clerk to the burial committee, said tenders had gone out for the initial development of Cemetery Field, with work expected to start next year. He said the burial committee had undertaken that the allotments association would have access to half the site once the development was complete