City council leaders have refused to give in to allotment-holders in Oxford who claim their rent should be waived for a year due to flooding.

The Osney, St Thomas and New Botley Allotment Association has asked the council for its first rent rebate in its 155-year history, after crops were destroyed by flooding in July and last month.

The association, which has 200 members, refused to pay the annual £1,097 rent bill in September, and secretary John Power asked city council leaders today to waive the bill for a year.

The former Labour county councillor told the executive board: "In total, the floods set our association back about £1,100. We agreed to ask the council for a rent-free year 2007-08.

"This does seem to me to be a fair solution, which does not set dangerous precedents.

"A rent rebate for one year when countless damage was caused to crops, machinery, tools, sheds and greenhouses would not seem unfair."

Mr Power called for the matter to be settled by an independent arbitrator.

But Jim Campbell, executive member for better finances, said waiving the rent would set a precedent. He added that his own allotment at the Trap Grounds, in North Oxford, had also flooded and said: "I am deeply sympathetic, but if the vegetables fail for one year for one reason or another that does not mean the council is responsible."

Mr Campbell said the council invested about £500,000 on allotments across Oxford two years ago, over a three-year period, and added that he hoped the Osney allotments issue did not need to be settled by arbitration.