Allotment holders have been left fuming after the council hit them with a rent rises of up to 400 per cent.



Green-fingered gardeners face forking out hundreds of pounds more each year to tend to their plots.



However, council bosses have defended the move, saying it is the first price increase in 10 years and is part of a £300,000 investment programme over the next five years.



Brian Westwell, 70, an allotment holder at Heys Allotments in Oswaldtwistle for nearly seven years, slammed the ‘ridiculous’ price rises and said he might be forced to give up his favourite hobby.



His annual rent is going up from £85.30 in 2012 to £202 in 2013, then £285.50 in 2014, £389 in 2015 and £467.50 in 2016.



He said: “If it was going up by £15 a year then that wouldn’t be too bad but to go up six-fold is not on. It’s not our fault if they haven’t put up the prices in 10 years but to put it up that much is ridiculous. Nobody will want an allotment and then they will be worse off.”



Fellow Heys Allotment holder Harold Gregson, 70, said he was ‘gob-smacked’ by the price rises and fears many elderly people will be forced out.



He said: “It’s unbelievable and just scandalous. Medical advisors tell us it’s therapeutic, it's exercise and good for the health, you can meet people socially and you can grow your own veg.”



Nicola Sleddon, secretary of Huncoat Allotment Association, said some of their tenants are on low income and can’t afford the price hike.



Tory councillor Marlene Haworth said the price rise was a stealth tax.



She said: “I’m absolutely appalled. For nearly three years we resisted strongly putting up allotment rents.



“They might say it’s wonderful there’s no council tax increases but it’s not.



“Like the funeral charge rises, they are coming in with these back door methods of getting money.”



Coun Ciaran Wells, the council’s cabinet member for Education, Leisure and Arts, said each of the 650 plots cost tax payers £240 a year and ‘cannot be sustained’.



He said: “I have secured agreement with my Cabinet colleagues that no increase would take place until 2013.



“After that a series of rent increases will need to occur over the next five years to ensure we can continue to provide and improve the service to allotment tenants.



“However even after the increases over five years well over half the tenants will still be paying less than £2 per week.”