Allotments... an interesting article from the BBC

[Shirley]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4776325.stm

Forget the flat caps, allotments are becoming fashionable among inner-city eco-warriors. So why the sudden urge to grow your own and, with constant demands for new land to build houses, how safe are our allotments?

What's worth a 10-year waiting list? How about the chance to get mud on your boots and talk about carrot propagation?

Because the face of the traditional allotment is changing. It's no longer just old men, Thermos flasks and Woodbine smoke coiling over the vegetables.

Instead there is a new breed of allotment enthusiast - more likely to be younger, female and bringing along the children to help out.

And the demand for these allotments is such that in some inner-city areas there are waiting lists stretching out for years and years ahead.

"There are far more women on allotments now," says Claire Willis of the National Society of Allotment and Leisure Gardeners (NSALG).

Urban farmers

"The image was once the flat-cap brigade, a place where a husband went to get away from his wife - but that's changed," she says.

"It's becoming much more of a community activity. I see my neighbouring allotment holder bringing his children, so they can watch how to cultivate vegetables and seeing the distinction between growing food and buying it from a supermarket," says Ms Willis.

Next week is National Allotment Week, which is being launched with claims of an allotment revival.

This isn't so much in rural or suburban areas, where allotments can remain underused, but in much grittier inner-city settings.

If there is a surge in allotment use, it's in these densely-populated, highly-urbanised places, where the traditional sounds are more likely to be the wailing of police sirens than the gentle thud of a digging shovel.

Organic tastes

In north London, the allotment waiting list in Camden has stretched to 10 years and in parts of Haringey the lists are so long that they've been closed.

In Lewisham in south London there are waiting lists of more than six years for some allotments.

"There are a lot more women and younger families interested," says Heidi Alexander, the borough's deputy mayor. And "younger professionals" moving into the area are also swelling the ranks of the allotment diggers, she says.

These eco-conscious city dwellers are being influenced by suspicions about food safety - and reflect the growing demand for organic produce.

"It's cheaper and healthier to grow your own food and there's a greater awareness that it helps the environment," says Ms Alexander, although the time it takes to cultivate an allotment can't be overlooked.

"People want to be confident that the food that they and their families are eating hasn't been grown with pesticides. They want control over exactly what's going on their families' plates for dinner."

Waiting lists

In Brighton too waiting lists have been shut until further notice.

"The sort of people using allotments has changed a lot over the past decade," says Joyce Edmond-Smith, the councillor responsible for sustainability.

As well as more women and families, she says there are "groups of people, friends who get together and rent a plot that they wouldn't be able to look after by themselves".

Allotments are even being used to improve health - with the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers running "green gyms", where gardening skills are used as a form of exercise.

But it's not all sunshine in the garden. The environmental boom might have made it hip to grow your own vegetables, but the long-term picture for allotments remains uncertain.

Under threat

There has been relentless pressure on land for housing - and even though the number of allotments has remained steady for the past decade at about 300,000, this follows a sustained period of post-war decline.

In the late-1940s, in the wake of the wartime Dig for Victory campaign to combat food shortages, there were 1.4 million allotments - and even in the late 1970s there were still almost 500,000.

Allotments have a protected status - and a spokesperson for the Department for Communities and Local Government says that it aims "to deliver and protect allotments" and that "planning policy guidance is clear that new housing development should not be at the expense of losing recreational open space".

But it still remains a struggle to save the land from developers, says NSALG's Claire Willis. Untended plots are particularly vulnerable, and without legal protection she warns that "allotments would cease to exist".

"People pay lip service to wanting green space... but with the building programme going on at the moment, it looks as though we won't stop until everything is concreted over," she says.

ALLOTMENTS: THE PLOT SO FAR

300,000 allotments
200,000 allotments lost since late-1970s
Typical annual yield is £300 of produce
Allotment charges £25 to £120 per year
Allotment plot is 10 poles (250 sq m)
A pole is measured as the length from the back of the plough to the nose of the ox

[Martin]

all that farmland sitting around doing bog all..........seems a very simple equation to me! - allow the people to resettle the land! 8)

[Ranter]

Damn it, there was I all ready to post the exciting news that I, along with 2 friends, have just got an allottment & what do I find? We're part of trend.

That's a first, I've never been trendy in my life.

But, here we are: 3 friends to share the work & the rewards, & we're all female. But as trends go, this is a good one to be part of & we're still excited

[Shirley]

Way to go Lisa!!

Congratulations... and may you reap many rewards from your allotment over the coming years.