The new allotments created by Roundway Parish Council have been a hive of activity as eager families start growing their own produce.

After ten years of searching for a suitable site, the council opened the allotments off Green Lane on Saturday.

The three-acre site was transferred by Wiltshire Council to the parish council for £1. It was previously agricultural land leased to a farmer.

The site has 64 allotments and each plot measures five metres by 20 metres and has a shed. The project has cost the parish council about £95,000.

Joanne Ward, 37, of Chivers Road, arrived at her plot with a handmade scarecrow.

She said: “I lived in Buckinghamshire and was on the waiting list for an allotment for seven years. In the week I was moving out, I got a letter saying that I had got an allotment. Since moving to Devizes I had been on the waiting list for two years.”

Simon Reynolds, 40, and his wife, Emma, moved to Newman Road four years ago and they and their sons, Sam, ten, Max, eight, and Joe, four, have been helping out on Emma’s parent’s allotment in Chippenham.

Mr Reynolds said: “Nearly all of our vegetables on the Christmas table last year were home grown. Having our own allotment is brilliant.”

Roundway parish councillor Albert Wooldridge, who has managed the project, said the first year would be difficult as the site had been laid to grass for three years and is virgin soil. All of the 64 plots have been allocated and there is no one on the waiting list.

Mr Wooldridge said allotment holders had raised concerns there was no water supply on the site.

He said they were unable to connect to the water main because the pressure is low but a bore hole with a pump may be put in place.