On Sun, 10 Jun 2012 10:45:16 +1000, Peter Howard wrote:

3.85 acres. The developers should be able to squeeze 50 townhouses on to
that.
snip
I notice that the "guide price" is $75000 ...

or £50,000/hectare. Trying to decide if that is expensive, ie the
land already has outline planning permission of some sort.

The OP needs to get together with the other allotment owners and do
some digging but not on their plots, through the records about the
land. Find out what rights they have, the actual status of the land,
see if they can get (part) funding to form their own Allotment
Association and buy it. Talk to the current owner, perhaps there
could be changes to the current agreements etc that would mean they
no longer wish to sell (but I suspect the owner wants the cash...).

The method of sale makes me suspicious as well, "private treaty and
informal tender". Is there some cough deal going on in the
background, dig about for deatils of the current owners and if a
company the directors of that company, then have look to see what
other directorships they or close associates (wifes, girlfriends,
business partners etc) have...

As I said start digging...

--
Cheers
Dave.