Selfsufficientish.com

Not sure on exactly how practical it would be but an idea occured to me today regarding allotments. The council is always using the "we don't have enough space" argument as an excuse for allotments, however we all drive around lumps of pretty much unused space everyday. Roundabouts are what I'm on about I noticed yesterday that two near me were being done up with various plants and in one case more shingle than yoru adverage beach. This obviously has to be paid for somehow in materials, along with wages for the council workers and so on. All this for something that essentially is treated as an obstruction that slows me down from my journey destination.

At best they may get some obscure award thrown onto half a page in the local paper then forgotten about until 4-5 years later the whole process begins anew. Even the medium sized ones could easily house two allotments on them, and there are alot of roundabouts in most towns.

Now I did consider a saftey issue, but then no one would even think of suggesting such a thing for a roundabout that has multiple sets of lights and huge traffic volumes. Although if it is that large why not just have a subway connected to the centre as this cost is only going to be around the makeover prices of two or three refurbs and the rent will pay that back in time.

There was talk of a scheme like that a couple of years ago in Suffolk, but it involved creating veggies that would be resistant to exhaust fumes. Don't think they got very far with it, at least not heard anything about it since.

Yeah, I think exhaust fumes are the killer as far as human food production goes. Nevertheless, roundabouts are often dead space. I'd like to see awards for roundabouts, annually distributed, along the lines of 'most aesthetic', or 'most ecofriendly', or 'most imaginative' or 'most-pretty-much-anything-that-isn't-carbon-monoxide-flavoured-grass'. And, actually, an award scheme isn't that difficult to set up. We just need the categories, the expenses to pay the judges while they visit each contender, and a little local publicity. It could be done.

Kind regards, 2RM.