Council tax payers will ultimately foot the bill for a council mistake that resulted in allotment-holders losing their vegetable plots.

Hartlepool Borough Council could be forced to find as much as £117,000 to reinstate the sites after the Local Government Ombudsman said it had been wrong to reclaim the town's Briarfields allotments.

Tomorrow, members of the council's cabinet will meet to discuss how the tenants are to be reinstated with new plots - and whether they should be put back on the original site or given alternatives. Rebuilding 12 plots at Briarfields, which the council claimed and then flattened last year for possible executive housing, would cost £117,000.

Placing them at other plots around the town will cost £24,000, and putting the tenants at an extended Waverley Terrace allotment site will cost £91,000.

However, Peter Horrocks, the North-East representative for the National Society of Allotment and Leisure Gardeners, who has been fighting the tenants' case, said he could see no other option but Briarfields.

"The council had no right to take these allotments and that view has been backed by the ombudsman, so they should simply give the plots back," said Mr Horrocks.

"Briarfields was very pleasant, handy to their homes and away from traffic. It was in a good area. Some other sites in the middle of Hartlepool are less than satisfactory."

However, Mr Horrocks said he believed the council could reinstate Briarfields for far less than £117,000.

"It's ridiculous," he added. "All they have to do is put a fence back up and supply each of the holders with a shed. How much would that cost?"

After a ten-year fight, the council evicted the tenants in October 2003 with the aim of selling the 2.5 acres of land off Elwick Road and selling it to developers in an attempt to boost its budget.

However, planning permission for a development was refused, with councillors saying they wanted to keep the land as open space.

Former tenant Dr Peter Pickens said Briarfields was the only option for the gardeners. He said Waverley Terrace had been targeted by vandals to such an extent that only 12 of the 60 plots were occupied.

But he said in order to bring costs down, the tenants would be prepared to carry out a lot of the work themselves.

He said: "The council officers have made a series of blunders, which are going to cost the town a large sum of money."