UK: Why growing demand is shrinking allotments
Councils are offering smaller patches of land as cost of living crisis fuels grow-your-own trend
By Colin Fernandez
Environment Editor For The Daily Mail
25 September 2022
Excerpt:
As demand grows, councils are shrinking plots with half or quarter size spaces.
Nearly two-thirds have cut them with only 21 per cent keeping them full-size.
It comes after calls from Alan Titchmarsh and Charlie Dimmock to divide plots.
They appear as unchangingly British as a cup of tea, a bus queue and moaning about the weather.
But the world of allotments and their gardeners is enduring an upheaval from the roots up.
As demand has rocketed, councils are shrinking their plots – with some now 80 times smaller than the traditional 240 square yards once aimed at feeding a family of four.
Providers are often offering half or quarter size spaces – and even ‘micro plots’ as small as three square yards, a study by the Association for Public Sector Excellence (APSE) found.
Nearly two-thirds of councils have cut the size of their allotments and just 21 per cent provide old-style 240 square yard plots.
It comes after calls from the likes of Alan Titchmarsh and Charlie Dimmock to divide plots to tackle waiting lists. Those lists have been fuelled by the cost of living crisis and the desire to grow your own healthy fruit and veg.
Nearly nine in ten councils – 87 per cent – report a rise in applications for plots and some 180,000 people nationally are waiting.
