From Albania to Argentina, Costa Rica to Cyprus, an ongoing dispute about a village allotments has - online at least - attracted international attention.

A poll to gauge views on Bearsted Parish Council's controversial proposal to move the plots in Church Landway to allow for the expansion at a tennis club had to be taken down after just two days surrounding allegations of foul play.

A vote on a website called Support Bearsted Community Projects was due to run from last Monday until today - but it was taken down after IP addresses from around the globe were used to oppose the scheme.

An IP address is a computer's unique number that identifies it on the internet. An IP address can be changed simply by unplugging, and then plugging back in, your router while on an IP-checking website.

An email seen by KentOnline which was sent by Bearsted and Thurnham Tennis Club chairman Mike Laurenson on Wednesday says "regrettably we have been forced to shut down" the Support Bearsted Community Projects voting consultation, claiming it had "hard evidence of it being abused by one or more persistent individuals from the opposing side who have fraudulently manipulated their IP addresses in order to submit large numbers of votes in their favour".

He said: "It was 90% in favour of the project and 10% against. One of the rules we had stipulated was two votes per IP address, so two per household.

"But all of a sudden, from around 8pm on Monday, ‘no’ votes were pinging through from different IP addresses. They were coming from Australia, Albania and all sorts of places - you start to think ‘Okay, some of these might be abroad’.

"We just thought... it was only a poll."

Countries where votes were submitted from include Australia, Bosnia, Brazil, Canada and Russia.

Mr Laurenson added: "The tennis club particularly doesn’t want to be pointing fingers at anyone - we don’t think that’s right."

But current allotment holder Tony Grieve said: "We know of one plot holder who was away on Spain. She voted which she is quite entitled to do.

"So that IP will have come from abroad but they have made these allegations, but they have not named names."

Mr Grieve, of Cross Keys, Maidstone, feels it is heavily implied he and another plot holder are the individuals in question as they are the only two to publicly oppose the plans.

"The tennis club particularly doesn't want to be pointing fingers at anyone..."

Richard and Dena Ashness donated a patch of land, opposite to the current Church Landway Allotment, although still on the same stretch of footpath, to the council.

Council plans would see the allotments moved, creating 21 more plots, while extending the car park by Holy Cross Church and providing two new tennis courts which would be paid for by Bearsted and Thurnham Lawn Tennis Club. Toilets and a Dementia-Friendly Children's Gardens would also be added at the new allotment site.

Mr Ashness, who lives on Church Lane, has also spoken of his involvement publicly for the first time.

He says they have "nothing to gain personally" from donating the land and denied suggestions proposals were drawn up in secret by the council, saying: "The facts are that, since I was aware that there could be downsides for some allotment holders, I suggested that the parish council provide an outline plan before engaging in discussions with them.

"This is exactly what the parish council did."

He accepted current allotment holders may suffer "disruption" and "heartache".

But he added: "The issues for them will be short term. The benefits will last for generations.

"It will be a sad day for Bearsted if the interests of a small group are allowed to stop a project which will benefit the whole community for generations."

A spokesman for Bearsted Parish Council said: "The idea around the new allotment is to offer more to the parish.

"There would be a well-being garden. Everyone who is living with any sort of condition will be able to go somewhere where there is no traffic for some space."

Both sides say the opposing party has been circulating false information.

Chairman of the tennis club Mr Laurenson, 52, said: "I totally understand that a minority are against it, particularly existing allotment holders. The bizarre element with that is it is not all the allotment holders who are against it - it is some that have plots. "Quite a number of them have Mare’s Tail disease on their plot.

"So those allotment holders are really quite keen to move.

"Then you also have the people on the waiting list for allotments. Obviously, they have nowhere to go."

In a statement, the Bearsted and Thurnham Society listed its own objections.

It says it has concerns in terms of the threat moving the allotment holders would cause to the environment nearby.

It added: "A large grove of trees occupies approximately 34% of the proposal site and the current scheme would result in the destruction of most of them if the parish council’s objectives were to be achieved.

"Wooded areas provide habitats for insects, invertebrates, small mammals, birds and fungi while absorbing carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen into the atmosphere and their destruction runs, contrary to current conservation policy.

"Neither tennis courts nor car parking provide any kind of natural habitat.

"The society questions whether the loss of some half an acre of woodland, and the wildlife it supports, can be justified."

Other concerns raised included the challenges getting planning permission to extend the car park would cause, the impact that car park expansion would have on Church Lane and it also feels allotment holders, whose gardens date back more than 40 years, were "effectively excluded" from initial discussions, something Mr Ashness denies.

"The society questions whether the loss of some half an acre of woodland, and the wildlife it supports, can be justified..."

The spokesman for the council said: "We are still very much at the ideas stage."

Mr Laurenson added: "You are never going to please everybody.

"You also know there are some members of the community that don’t like change and want things to stay the way they are, I totally understand that too."

But Mr Grieve, 74, says he will not keep his plot if the changes go ahead.

He said: "If we lost the allotments, that would be it because it is a stressful situation, really."

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