SIR WALTER FOSTER (Derbyshire, Ilkeston)To ask the President of the Local Government Board, whether he will state the grounds upon which the Local Government Board have refused 447 their sanction to the parish council of Gosberton obtaining a loan to defray the cost of buying lands for allotments.
(Answered by Mr. Walter Long.) Parish councils are not empowered to purchase land for allotments, although they can hire it. I had, therefore, no alternative but to decline to sanction the loan desired by the Gosberton Parish Council, but I suggested that the matter might be brought before the rural district council, by whom land can be purchased for allotment purposes.