FOR 30 years Edith Avery has lovingly tended an allotment outside her back door in Rogerstone - but now it could be taken away from her because it has too many flowers and shrubs and a lack of vegetables.

Rogerstone community council has informed the 89-year-old by letter that her tenancy agreement for the plot has been terminated because she has not complied with regulations.

She was given 14 days to clear it or the council would arrange it and charge her. But until late yesterday Mrs Avery and her family were unable to contact the council since the letter arrived on June 15, leaving her "worried sick" about a deadline on Monday for her to leave the plot.

"I'm afraid I'll wake up one morning and there'll be men here clearing it," said Mrs Avery, an RAF Coastal Command teleprinter operator during the Second World War, and whose late husband Albert served with the Royal Artillery.

"I've grown vegetables and strawberries, but as I've got older, it has gradually switched to flowers and shrubs. It's nice to look out on.

"It's not as if it isn't tended, like a few of the plots around here, which are overgrown?"

Mrs Avery's daughter Sandra Tomaszewski, from Pontllanfraith, said the council finally contacted her after the Argus called it about the situation yesterday. The council told her there would be no eviction on Monday and that it would discuss her mother's plot on Wednesday.

She acknowledged there may be a technical breach of the rules, but said: "I think it's a bit brutal.

"My mother took on this allotment when no-one else wanted it, to keep it tidy outside the house."

Newport West MP Paul Flynn has taken up Mrs Avery's case.

"Mrs Avery has worked this plot for 30 years and it is very well tended, a credit to her," he said.

"I can't understand why the council is taking this stance. It's nonsense."

The council's clerk is on holiday until Monday, and a message on the council's answerphone asks people who have received allotment termination notices to reply in writing.

Council chairman councillor Andrew Cooksey did not want to comment directly, but said he would be discussing the matter with the clerk next week.