17 FEBRUARY 1998

PROFESSOR DAVID CROUCH and MR GEOFF STOKES

  1.  Professor Crouch, Mr Stokes, may I welcome you to the first session of our enquiry into the future for allotments. Before I ask you to start, may I just place on record the appreciation of the Committee to the Fulham Palace Meadows Allotment Association whom we went to see yesterday afternoon. I think that the Committee found it a very interesting visit and we appreciated that a great deal. Before we start the questions I wonder whether you could identify yourselves for the record and perhaps you could also just explain to us why having an allotment is something that we should be encouraging people to do.

A colleague said to me that allotments were really a left-over from the second world war, an anachronism, and the sooner that we got rid of them the better. Tell us why that is wrong, if you will, but please identify yourselves first.

  (Mr Stokes)  Mr Chairman, I am Geoff Stokes, and I am secretary of the National Society of Allotment and Leisure Gardeners. There are many reasons why allotments are important to allotment holders, not only from the point of view of growing fresh fruit and vegetables, but also for the fresh air, the exercise, the community spirit, it enables people to work together and it provides an opportunity for everybody whether they have gardens attached to their own properties or not actually to be able to get out and garden, and if we were to lose the allotments then a large number of people, estimated to be well in excess of half a million, would lose the opportunity actually to go out and grow their own vegetables.

  2.  Professor Crouch?

  (Professor Crouch)  Mr Chairman, I am David Crouch, Anglia University. I thought it important to say that while I am completely behind the National Society of Allotment and Leisure Gardeners, I do not want them to be held by anything that I say in case they do not feel comfortable with that - I do not want to get too many spikes from behind. The other thing is, yes, in addition to what Geoff Stokes has already said, I would add the importance of the environment which allotments are and the environment which people create for themselves and the sense of the responsibility for the environment that that offers, and beyond the third of a million or so households that benefit directly and all the friendships that are engaged with that, outside the allotments, many more people enjoy the spaces which the environment of the allotment provides. While there are certainly a few areas where there are negative bits of environment, these are trivial and marginal and small efforts can deal with them very positively.

Chairman:  Thank you. Mr Cummings?

Mr Cummings:   Thank you, Mr Chairman. My question concerns trends, but perhaps I can preface the question, Mr Chairman, with your permission, by saying that I was virtually reared on an allotment in a pigeon loft.

Mrs Dunwoody:  That explains a lot, does it not!

  3.  It does, yes! I might say, Mr Chairman, that the pigeon loft was much cleaner than many of people's homes in those days. We have an allotment culture in the north east which is perhaps different from what Members of Parliament saw yesterday on their visit in that the old coal owners and factory owners who housed their workers in colliery rows encouraged people to move out into the countryside into vast areas which were turned into allotments. Indeed, they were encouraged to have horses, ducks, chickens, rabbits, pigeons, as well as growing leeks and vegetables. Now that culture has now changed and everyone appears now to be cloned: you have to be a certain type of allotment holder, with a certain size shed in the garden growing specific vegetables, forbidden to keep livestock, so culture has changed, particularly in the north east, and it has caused a great deal of heartache to many of my constituents and people who live in the surrounding areas, and I am just wondering how these trends have changed over the years, what future trends may be and what do you expect the situation to be in perhaps ten or 15 years' time?

  (Professor Crouch)  Mr Chairman, I think that there is a very important part of allotment life which is about heritage and the values and identity which has developed in many people across the country.

However, allotments are of the future and the present much more than they are of the past, and I think that one of the exciting things is the diversity of lives and shared lives within allotment holding today. Two particular figures are examples, Mr Chairman, and I will not throw figures around across the table today too much, but the two figures are these, one, that the age spread of allotment holders runs pretty evenly from mid thirties to into retirement age. The idea of its being associated with retired people in the main is wrong. About one third of allotment holders are actually retired people. I do not wish in any way to make an ageist remark either way about that. However, Mr Chairman, the other thing is that the participation of women has significantly increased over the last 20 to 25 years from 3 per cent to 15 per cent and I think that that is an important dimension of the trend. It is widening and it is deepening across society because, as Geoff Stokes suggested, there are so many values which people find important in their lives in allotment holding.

  4.  Do you believe that it is acceptable for allotment holders to have livestock, to have chickens, to have ducks, perhaps to keep a small horse, as they did in the past without any interference at all from planners before we have the various planning Acts.

The chairman mentioned allotments from the second world war. However, the allotments that I am referring to go back perhaps 150 years or so, so that we have 150 years of this particular sort of culture. How do you see this in the future? Do you believe that protection ought to be given to the older culture of allotment holders?

  (Mr Stokes)  This is always going to be a difficult question. The tradition of livestock keeping is certainly more prevalent in the north than it is in the south and, of course, I know that the highest provision of allotments is actually up in the north east so there is still a strong tradition up there. The keeping of livestock has always caused a bit of problem in some respects because a number of councils see livestock keeping as being something that does not make the sites look too good. However, we have got the legislation which does permit the keeping of hens and rabbits, and those in themselves do not seem to be a problem, and it would seem to me that providing that allotment holders abide by the welfare codes that are set down by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to do with housing and husbandry I see no reason why livestock should not continue to be kept on allotments.

  5.  A range of livestock or would you narrow that down?

  (Mr Stokes)  I think that it would really have to suit the particular circumstances of the area.

  6.  I noticed that you said they do not look so good.

Quite frankly, the area where I was brought up there was always a great deal of mystery and magic to go down to the gardens with high hedges and small sheds and large sheds, a conglomeration of corrugated iron sheeting and orange boxes to make fences - people were very ingenious in those days, and I think that it is rather a pity now that perhaps we go for this sort of sterile and laid out allotment plan which takes away much of the old beauty which I consider the gardens were when I was a child.

  (Professor Crouch)  Mr Chairman, I am very much for being inclusive about allotments and what people do in them and, indeed, in the submission of my written evidence I have argued towards greater openness to possibilities linked to local communities in all sorts of ways, which is being tried and explored in many parts of the country, but obviously certain things to do with health and to do with safety and security are important as well. I have a very open mind to the interests of the kind of aesthetics which you have expressed.

Chairman:  Dr Whitehead?

  7.  Thank you, Mr Chairman. I cannot match those descriptions, so I will move on to a simple question.

You mentioned in your evidence, Professor Crouch, that vacancies bear very little relationship to allotment demand and then you set out a number of reasons why you think that that is so. Could you perhaps expand on that because I think that it seems contrary to common sense that we do not look at lot vacancies and waiting lists?

  (Professor Crouch)  Mr Chairman, I would not question common sense, but the kind of information that I would like to be able to test with local studies which can be done quite straightforwardly has not yet been achieved. In about 12 years of talking with allotment holders, with local authorities and with various other parties who are involved with allotments at least in this country, and overseas, in our country my evidence is that in very few cases does actual vacancy of plots really have much to do with allotment demand, and I have suggested a number of the reasons why there are vacancies and the kinds of actions and inactions that can increase the number of vacant plots.

Here I think that local authorities and in some case allotment holders and allotment societies can share blame for having vacant plots which may be to do with promotion, it may be to do with management, it may be to do with maintenance, public face and all sorts of things like that.

  8.  So that if we wanted to make a better case for allotments what more appropriate indicator of demand might be used, or is it a composite?

  (Professor Crouch)  Mr Chairman, I think that it would be valuable to establish a closer statistical relationship between actual demand waiting list and plot vacancy. To establish what actually vacant plots mean would necessitate evidence of how those allotments have been maintained, how they have been managed and how they have been promoted or otherwise, and I think that it is those kinds of things that I would like to see which would then make it quite clear that these vacant plots have very little to do with the lack of demand.

  9.  You mentioned also in your evidence, Professor Crouch, the question of uncertainty around decisions which are pending?

  (Professor Crouch)  Yes.

  10.  How widespread do you think that is?

  (Professor Crouch)  In numerous cases as word gets round, gossip, and sometimes it is accurate and sometimes it may be inaccurate, perhaps items in the local press have perhaps led people to believe that the kinds of energy, effort, investment that are needed in a lot of plots are rather wasted because within a year you may be out. That is a very good way of making a site rapidly empty out. Whether these tactics are used intentionally or not I am not certain, but sometimes one wonders.

  11.  How do you think in general local authorities might encourage more people to apply for allotments? You might say, give the sites more security, but in the sort of terms that you talked about in your evidence I am interested in particular in the age question in respect of allotment holders and your comments a few moments ago that they were concentrated in the older population.

  (Professor Crouch)  That they are not concentrated in the older population was my point. There is a wide spread of allotment holders from all ages.

  12.  Yes, I am sorry, mostly over 35, I think you said?

  (Professor Crouch)  Yes, I would not be surprised if traditionally that has been the age group going over a couple of hundred years, so I do not think that there is an issue there.

  13.  Do you think that there are substantial numbers of people who might like to become allotment holders?

  (Professor Crouch)  Oh, yes, given the approaches that many innovative and imaginative local councils up and down the country are trying out to do with environmental activity, to do with bringing in social services, to do with bringing in unemployed people and teenagers, the example of Bradford city, the example of uplands in Handsworth in Birmingham, there are so many sites up and down the country, places where these areas of allotments are being opened to the public rather than sealed off. They are seen as part of the community, there is involvement across the population. There may be local events which attract people into the sites for particular shows or parties, festivals, and those are some of the ways in which the wider community can become aware of them as well as more straightforward promotion publicity, items in the local press, the local council changing the image which still survives in some places which is of allotments being yesterday, being predominantly older people - for which I would prefer to say "of retired age". These kinds of images are so profoundly out of date - it is not the allotments that are out of date, it is frequently the images.

  14.  Mr Stokes?

  (Mr Stokes)  If I may just make a comment there, Mr Chairman, I think that from the allotment holders' point of view there seem to be a considerable number of obstacles in the way of people actually wanting to get hold of an allotment. The first thing is that our survey shows that some 78 councils actually had demand far in excess of the actual number of vacancies that they have got and some of these certainly are in the north east where there is already a very high provision. Redcar Council has 260 people on the waiting lists more than they actually have got vacancies. Durham, which has got about the highest provision in the country, has 100 people on waiting lists more than they can actually provide. There are many obstacles. Quite often people do not know where to go to get an allotment, they do not know where to go for any information. This I have certainly found out from my own experience in the office. At head office of the society over the past five years people have actually contacted us to say, "We have seen all this about allotments, where can be get hold of them?". As far as other obstacles are concerned we know of at least two local authorities who are actually charging people before they take their names or charging them in one case £25 for them to sign the tenancy agreement. When you have got to pay the same amount as a year's rent to sign the tenancy agreement that is going to be very off putting certainly to people on benefit or people on a pension. Then there is the lack of security, and I am talking in terms of the fact that under the Allotments Act you are only allowed 12 months' notice to quit. Doing a lot of gardening there is a lot of effort involved, a lot of work and quite a lot of expenditure. A lot of people are not prepared unless they have got a lot of time on their hands actually to go and spend that money knowing that they could be off with just one year's notice.

Chairman:  Mr Donohoe?

  15.  Thank you, Mr Chairman. Just on that point, do you think that the rates that are charged are high enough to be able to embrace all of what you say is necessary, particularly on the question of security which we saw was a major problem on the visit that we made yesterday to Fulham?

  (Mr Stokes)  Mr Chairman, this is the question that I think is going always to be difficult actually to answer. We have started looking at the value of allotment land in relation to its actual agricultural use.

In terms of an agriculture tenancy allotments rents are very high as against the actual cost of renting for agricultural use. Clearly there is an extra benefit to the allotment holders because of the additional work that has to be put in by the local authorities, but in many cases what we are actually talking about is an agricultural field that has been split into plots and the allotment holders have nothing more than anybody renting that on an agricultural basis, so that in itself it very off putting, to expect people to pay a lot more money than they would if it was an agricultural tenancy.

  (Professor Crouch)  Mr Chairman, I would argue that I think that it may well be something that is worth examining, looking at the costs, rents, across the country in different places in relation to the different particular facilities that are available. In the national survey that was done we have that data, though we have not had the opportunity yet to examine it in full.

However, Mr Chairman, I would say that if one looks at allotments simply as ways of covering their costs, looking at them on a particular dimension of achievements and delivery, then it is unlikely that we are going so to increase the rent as to cover all costs, and obviously the environmental, community, the health, the educational, the environmental responsibility and all the others things that I mentioned are all other indices by which one could measure success and achievement of these places as one does parks, for example, where one is not normally charged to enter. However, at the same time, I think that there may be room to have a closer look at costs, fees, rents, in relation to facilities.

  16.  You must agree that on the basis of what we saw yesterday it must be soul destroying if you build something and then you discover that overnight somebody has come over the fence and destroyed all of what you have done?

  (Professor Crouch)  Yes, I think that there are a lot of elements which come into the question of security - apart from a few local councils being the bigger vandals - that is, security in terms of general vandalism, that allotments seen as part of a local community have a much greater chance of reducing vandalism than if they seek to turn their backs on the local community, and hence my idea about openness and inclusivity. At the same time there will be the hard facts of vandalism which need to be addressed and there are also opportunities for local councils to involve plot holders in all of these kinds of maintenance aspects, and one often finds a much enhanced commitment amongst the plot holders if they have that kind of responsibility added to them. In that case some of the actual costs which may be involved such as in enhancing security may be alleviated.

  17.  Do you consider allotment land to be being efficiently used at present as it stands?

  (Professor Crouch)  Can you give me an idea of your criteria for "efficiently used"?

  18.  In terms of its occupancy in some cases. There are a number of sites where there is as much as 15 per cent of the land not used, for instance?

  (Professor Crouch)  Yes, I suggested how quite readily those could be filled up in terms of publicity promotion, adequate maintenance, confidence in the mid term future and things like that. In terms of actual efficiency of plots' use which are actually occupied things such as an enhancement of environment, contribution to the person's health, their contribution to community development, their contribution to the wider environment of the locality in which they are placed, those are all criteria that I would examine.

  19.  But if there is in some cases as much as 25 per cent of the plots lying empty surely that is not doing anything to encourage the continuation, but it is doing quite the reverse?

  (Professor Crouch)  Oh, I quite agree, but you can get action from local councils to assist in clearing plots linked with promotional development, linked with good press notes, linked with advertising, linked with involvement with social services and environmental organisations. There are numerous examples up and down the country and the Growing Food in Cities report is possibly the best source of some of those examples. I would say that the problem is one of failing to open to the possibility of where allotments are as we enter the twenty-first century rather than still thinking back to where allotments were, as the chairman introduced.