When the gas main is being dug up outside the front door to replace the one laid last month, the builder’s radio on the roof opposite is almost tuned into Radio Essex, tree butchers are chain-sawing your favourite cherry tree in the park out back because they’re worried someone might bump their head on the branches, the neighbours are having their fourth break-up this week and it’s only Tuesday, a trio of car alarms are pointlessly calling for help from owners who are four miles away in the City and, to cap it all, there’s a visit from the Jehovah’s Witnesses, on that kind of day, when everything gets too much, there’s always the oasis of the allotment.

Halfway out the door, you meet your neighbour going into hers. She’s the one on the other side to the ones having the break-up. You tell her you are going to dig over the potato patch. She tells you that the Council have been testing all their allotments for contamination, and the news looks bad. You give up on the potatoes and decide to head for the pub. It’s that kind of day.

A week later, you get a letter from the Council telling you that six of their nine allotments are seriously contaminated with lead and arsenic, and that if yours is one of the six, which of course it is, you should immediately stop eating any fruit and vegetables produced there, should not allow your children to play there, and should wear gloves to avoid contacting the soil whilst working there. But after that kind of news who in their right mind would go anywhere near the place. Not you. Suddenly your homegrown, organic dream of self-sufficiency turns horribly sour. The vine tomatoes that only yesterday you’d proudly hung above the sink take on a poisonous air. The marrows stored on top of the dresser now resemble timebombs. But worse than that, you start becoming particularly sensitive to the slightest stomach pains. Lead? Arsenic? It’s a slow, painful death that just now you’re not ready for and, perhaps more to the point, neither are your children.

There’s a meeting called a week later at Hackney Town Hall. The Council’s going to clarify the situation. You go along with a portfolio of concerns: just how much of a genuine risk to health is your produce? The Council inform you that it isn’t as bad as they’d first thought. The contamination is high, but you’d have to be eating it for fifty odd years for it to have serious effects. You find yourself wondering just what the effects are of the ten years you’ve been growing your own; and what about those who’ve been at it longer? In the meantime, you miss the next question. It was something to do with testing methods, asked by one of many allotmenteers who clearly suspect that the Council’s real interest is in turning Hackney’s few green and pleasant lands into development sites. He is assured that the tests were carried out to the highest scientific standards, and that the Council are committed to ensuring that the allotments remain as allotments. There’s one or two doubting sighs from the assembled crowd, but generally the assurances are accepted in good faith.

Someone then wants to know how the soil has come to be so polluted, and is informed that the main causes appear to be a mixture of old industrial slag and lead paint, plus modern treated woods. But wasn’t the soil tested ten or so years ago? Yes, but these are new EU standards.

You’re baffled, and so, it appears, is everyone else. Surely, old slag and lead paint were as poisonous then as they are now? But rather than risk the protracted, you decide to pursue the prosaic.

What about Clissold Park, it’s only just over the road from your allotment, is that contaminated too? ‘No’, you’re informed, ‘it was private parkland for centuries.’ You wonder how it is that the wealthy always seem to get let off the hook, but you don’t bother to ask. And then, at last, someone comes up with the million-dollar question: ‘what are the Council going to do about it?’ Why, replace the soil, of course. ‘And who’s going to fund this massive exercise in earth moving?’ ‘The Council is looking to Government funding to make it possible.’

And the latest news? At this time, ‘given that the Council will remediate the allotments shortly… the Health Protection Agency does not consider there to be a significant risk to human health from… consumption of vegetables and fruit… provided that the items are thoroughly washed and peeled… [or from] planting of flowers and shrubs.’ However, they do recommend that you ‘wear gloves when gardening… wash your hands after working in the allotment and before handling food… wash your children’s hands after playing or working in the allotment and before handling food.’

It all seems somewhat toned down from the first devastating missive, but you’re still worried about your tomatoes (the marrows having imploded several days ago). You haven‘t been near the allotment for weeks, and you find yourself worrying about all those other public and private places which might be similarly contaminated. What about your tiny back garden? Does that require protective clothing? What makes it all seem doubly bad is that they’re still digging up the gas main outside the front door. You want to go out, but you hardly dare. In desperation, you reach for the phone. ‘Hello? Is that the Contaminated Land Officer?’

And this is what you glean: in making the initial tests, the Council were fulfilling a legal obligation; equally, it is their responsibility to remedy the problem. They have taken further soil samples from the contaminated allotments so that appropriate ‘robust’ remedial action can be taken; this could vary from ‘dig and dump’ to the installation of raised beds, and will be decided over ongoing meetings with the Allotment Society. Once a contingency plan has been worked out, Government funding will be applied for, which the Council have been informed would take ‘three to four weeks’. This should make it possible for the affected allotments to be put right ‘over the winter months’.

What ever the negative implications might be concerning the environmental health risks of city life (of which a book could, and should, be written), it would appear that Hackney Council, in seeing it as a ‘showcase’ issue, are taking the matter of the allotments very seriously. One can only hope that the Government will be equally committed in releasing funds as soon as possible. Don’t hold your breath.

Hackney Council Contaminated Land Officer 020 8356 4827, The Health Protection Agency 020 7339 1300