Smashing Pumpkin (From Stroud News and Journal)

Smashing Pumpkin

STROUD allotment holders celebrated a successful year with a competition to find the biggest pumpkin in Bisley Old Road.

Stroud town councillors John Marjoram, Gwen Belcher and SNJ reporter Alli Pyrah, who were invited to judge the competition, considered the line-up carefully.

But there was only going to be one winner - a prime specimen produced by five-year-old Lois Hinder and her brother Noah, seven. Noah said commitment was the secret of their success. "We watered it and put in some stones so the slugs wouldn't come and eat it," he said.

After the judging, tenants enjoyed a barbecue as they admired their hard work. Nigel Little, secretary of the Bisley Old Road Allotment Holders' Association, said the competition was a way of bringing the community together.

"We wanted something that was a culmination of the year's push to get the allotments regenerated," he said.

Earlier this year, the allotments were all but derelict, with just six plots out of 40 occupied. But when they learned of plans to develop on the site, those who remained pulled together to regenerate the allotments, and recruit more tenants.

Bisley Old Road is now a thriving community, with almost all the plots occupied.