QUESTIONS have been raised over why it is now set to cost £30,000 to clean up a contaminated allotment in Colne.

Tyre mulch was dumped on part of Alkincoats allotments in the 1980s without permission, poisoning the land.

Colne Town Council has now taken over management of the town’s plots.

And leaders are upset at having been left with a huge bill to clean up the polluted Alkincoats land.

Council contractors Liberata were commissioned in early 2009 to produce an assessment of the contamination.

It is now estimated that it will cost £30,000 to dig down to the natural clay, underneath the mulch, and replace it with ‘clean’ top soil.

Four new allotments could be created if the land was cleaned up. Last year it was reported dozens were on Pendle council’s waiting list.

Town council chairman David Clamp said the contamination report was “pretty offensive to be honest”.

He told a Colne area commitee meeting that the town council had taken over the allotments thinking the remediation work would have been completed.

In a letter from Alkincoats Allotment Association, secretary Michael Osborne said the borough council had already spent around £6,800 determining how contam-inated the site actually was.

Borough councillor David Clegg said: “Whatever the council says, there is quite a lot of concern over this contamination.”

He claimed it had taken Liberata two years to come up with the £30,000 estimate.

And it was now unlikely, in the current financial climate, that the money could be found for the work.

Councillors referred the £30,000 proposal to the council’s executive board for approval.