UNUSED land should be snatched from wealthy aristocrats to tackle the region's allotments crisis, the Government was told today.

A report said plots should be transferred from the country's biggest landowners to frustrated gardeners, who must otherwise wait years for a plot because of a growing shortage.

Nearly 5,500 people are on waiting lists across Merseyside, Cheshire and West Lancashire alone, according to a recent survey – almost as many as the 5,900 allotments in existence.

The most critical shortages are in Chester (950), Halton (936), Ellesmere Port and Neston (728), Sefton (571), Warrington and Wirral (498), the National Society of Allotment and Leisure Gardeners found.

Nationally, 100,000 people are waiting for a plot – a number on the rise as the recession tempts people to find new ways to cut household food bills.

Now the New Local Government Network (NLGN) has urged the Government to offer tax incentives to big landowners to persuade them to give up parts of their estates for allotments.

However, its report, Can You Dig It?, argues ministers should – if the landowners refuse to budge – allow local councils to take land for 10-year periods, for local gardeners to use.

Among the aristocrats in its sights is the Duke of Westminster, who is estimated to boast 129,300 acres, including at his country house close to the village of Eccleston, near Chester. Cheshire is picked out as a county with one of the most unfair concentrations of land ownership.