Digging For Victory - allotments in British towns

Ecologist, The, March, 2001 by Michael Wale

BRITAIN'S ALLOTMENTS CAN PROVIDE THE ULTIMATE EXAMPLE OF AFFORDABLE LOCAL FOOD PRODUCTION. BUT THEY ARE UNDER THREAT FROM DEVELOPERS, SAYS MICHAEL WALE.

ANYONE WHO HAS ever lived in or visited a British town or city will have come across allotments, even if they don't know it. And those strange patchworks of cultivated soil, potting sheds and pathways play a more vital role than most people might imagine in the cohesion of local communities, recreation, and environmental protection.

Allotments are a fundamental part of urban life. There are over 300,000 of them in Britain, and their creation can be traced back to the enclosures between 1750 and 1860, when common rights to the use of land were eliminated with parliamentary backing. The ultimate result of this theft of common land from communities was the 1908 Smallholdings and Allotments Act, which came about as a result of years of pressure from ordinary people for a share in the land again. The Act required local councils to provide land for the creation of allotments. There is still a standard size for a plot as defined by this act -- 10 rods -- about 250 square metres.

But in recent years this vital patchwork of urban land, accessible to all, has come under increasing threat from property developers and sloppy local councils, who see the value of allotments only in the potential for building executive homes on them. Fortunately, though, the allotments movement is fighting back.

THREATS

As a result of the 1908 legislation, most allotment land is controlled by local authorities. But there is also a chunk of it in private hands, and it is this land that is most at risk from increasingly grasping developers, who see much inner city allotment land as a waste of space. Over the years, for example, both British Rail and the Church of England have regularly sold off their allotment plots, choosing to take the money instead, and ignoring any social duties they might have had to the local communities which relied on the land.

Perhaps partly as a result of this loss of allotment land, public interest in the cultivation of allotments dipped during the 1970s and 1980s, leading some to predict that they would soon disappear altogether. But, gradually, in the 1990s, a succession of food scares affecting meat and eggs (salmonella, BSE, listeria and the rest), worries about GM crops, and the ongoing boom in organic food drove up the waiting lists for plots all over the county. The result now is that allotments are firmly back on the agenda as part of the vital heart of our towns and cities -- much to the chagrin of many developers.

Despite the increasing numbers of land-grabbing property men and compliant planning committees and departments, events taking place on the international political stage in the early 1990s would eventually come to the rescue of the British allotment movement. It all started in Rio de Janeiro, the venue in 1992 for the Earth Summit. At the Summit, the British Government, like many others, signed up to Agenda 21, the international agreement aimed at protecting the global environment.

Two thirds of Agenda 21's targets must be applicable at local level -- 'Local Agenda 21' -- and some councils and individuals across Britain have used this agreement to achieve very real improvements in their local urban environments. Among these changes are the promotion, protection and rejuvenation of allotments.

For example, I recently received a four-page 'Agenda 21' colour brochure from Ealing Council in West London, where I live. It was headed, perhaps unsurprisingly, 'Acting locally, thinking globally', and a role for allotments was clearly spelt out: 'An allotment strategy is being developed', it said, 'setting out the council's plans to help more people to grow their own food.' It is not the only local council to commit itself to this sort of allotment promotion.

And it's not just at local level that allotments are being promoted. The Government, recognising the pressures of the developers on allotment societies, set up a select committee to look into the whole question. It produced its report in 1998, a weighty volume containing much common sense from those who gave evidence, and well guided by its chairman, Labour MP Brian Donohoe, who represents an Ayr constituency in Scotland, and whose father had an allotment during Donohoe's childhood.

The report showed that more than 75 per cent of allotment plotholders said the reason they were there was because of their desire for fresh food, an aspect particularly valued by people who had allotments because they wanted to grow organic food, or were concerned about modern food production methods. It was also noted that allotments provide an important and cheap source of fresh food for poorer people.

The report also discovered that the modern allotment had social values as well as environmental ones; as anyone who has ever worked on or visited an allotment can testify. In a world in which social cohesion and neighbourly co-operation are becoming increasingly rare, it can be truly inspiring to see the way that allotment plotholders coexist. Every age and every culture is there, and everyone helps each other, with advice and with gifts of seeds, spare produce etc.