Gardening enthusiast Adam Marchant, who was wrongly given an allotment by Devizes Town Council because it didn’t know the boundary between Devizes and Roundway, is set to lose it.

Truck salesman Mr Marchant has had a plot at Windsor Drive since the allotments opened four years ago. At that time he lived in Chivers Road, off Brickley Lane, but the town council thought this was in Devizes, it is in fact in Roundway, and gave him an allotment.

The error only came to light when Mr Marchant, 36, moved house last year to Naughton Avenue, which is in Bishops Cannings, and he informed the town council of his new address.

Only residents of Devizes are allowed allotments at Windsor Drive and the town council’s other allotment site at Quakers Walk.

The town council told Mr Marchant that because he now lives in Bishops Cannings he will have to give his plot up on March 31.

Mr Marchant appealed but the council’s recreation and properties committee upheld the council policy at a meeting on Tuesday night.

Mr Marchant said: “I’m pretty gutted that having spent a lot of time, money and effort on my allotment I am losing it due to red tape. It’s unfair. According to the rules I shouldn’t have had an allotment in the first place because I lived in Roundway, but I assumed that there wasn’t the uptake of allotments at Windsor Drive.”

His sons, Lee, 11, and Luke, ten, enjoy working on the allotment. Mr Marchant said: “They help me doing the planting and harvesting and they love the fresh produce. They are a bit annoyed about us losing the allotment.”

Deputy town clerk Simon Fisher said: “At the time Mr Marchant applied for an allotment at Windsor Drive our map wrongly had Chivers Road in Devizes. That was our error.” There are 130 allotments at Windsor Drive and 41 at Quakers Walk. There are 32 people on the town council’s waiting list for an allotment and a further 30 people, who are not residents of Devizes, have expressed a wish for a plot.