Final written evidence, Professor David Crouch, Anglia University. Author of the DOETR Survey of Allotments in England, and the book The Allotment; its landscape and culture, Faber and Faber 1988, 1997, and The Plot, BBC2 1994.

  The Sub Committee requested me to provide a note on comparative costs of allotments and other facilities by local councils.

  Comparative costs: investment in allotments (source, CIPFA Chartered Institute of Public Finance Accountants statistics, Leisure and Recreation, 1997-98, published November 1997).

Net expenditure on allotments, England: £5,495,000.

i.e., Councils in England spend £18 per annum for each allotment plot for the 300,000 plotter households (at present £22 per plot not including the recorded vacant plots)

  no acreage comparisons given for these.

  To give examples of costs between allotments and "parks and open spaces" (no other categories) available:

  There is, then, a very clear disparity between the cost to local councils of allotments and other kinds of recreational/leisure facilities. On the two measures offered in the statistics above, there is evidence that:

  1. Allotments cost considerably less to provide in comparison with other facilities listed above: less than one quarter the cost of say parks/open spaces in Birmingham, one third the cost of parks/open space in non-Met Districts.

  2. Allotments cost only three times the global figure of the cost of maintaining closed churchyards, a little under half the cost of golfcourses.

  The disparity may of course be far greater. Exactly what is being compared in these statistics is very unclear.

  Can allotments and other open spaces be regarded as comparable? Allotments include the labour of allotment holders, substantial productivity for local populations, including food, physical and mental health/exercise, amenity, festivals, sustainability and recycling (e.g., Bradford's waste recycling scheme), social service rehabilitation and very strongly inter-ethnic community building (e.g., Handsworth Birmingham) and disability restoration (e.g., Oxford) and schools-schemes, so doubling their use, as intensive use for food, and for the wider community, which already their amenity provides.

  These matters are developed in the following pages.

  Final evidence on key issues raised during the Inquiry also follow.

  The evidence (Allotments 2000 National Society Report 1993) is that just over one third of plotters are of retired age. The rest spread evenly across age groups from 35 upwards. Also, 15 per cent are women (3 per cent in 1969). In addition, the ageing spread of the UK population and its relative strong popularity for allotments in that age group points to the increasing demand for allotment in the years ahead of us. The importance of allotments as one of few accessible places for especially older people (with no ageism; the allotment is a great leveller) for exercise is vitally important, where many have no gardens. Our Healthier Nation, HMSO 1998 the Public Health Green Paper demonstrates the importance of this kind of facility.

  I made clear at the Inquiry evidence that allotment "efficiency" cannot be calculated on the basis only of vacant plots, and that it should rather be measured alongside the value of other open spaces and parks. Even though parks are always "available" to anyone all the time, their use is not so, and allotments, although each plot is used "only" by the tenant at any one time, there is general availability of plots to all, and turnover, and the site provides an amenity for all local people too. Moreover, there should be careful discussion locally as to the possibility of opening up sites to the whole community during particular times, e.g., weekends daylight hours.

  Moreover, negotiation between councils and plotholders towards delegated management yields enormous benefits: given responsibility, plotters partake keenly in management and maintenance, and in return for greater security and "say", invest considerable effort, saving councils money: on collecting rents, on maintaining paths, boundaries, even erecting fences. Some allotment associations provide free labour for erecting fences etc., they buy with their allocated capital budget, which can go further when plotters are able to make and recycle too.

This releases enormous energy, as some of the Food Growing in Cities examples show.

  Expenditure cannot be considered aside from rents and other charges. As my Report of Survey argues, there is room for considering adjustments to rents. If at present there is a total allotment spend nationally of £8 million, income of two and a half million, then a shortfall of five or so million pounds can be reduced by doubling rents to waged people. I would argue holding rents to retired and other unwaged, or providing rent-free periods in some cases, e.g., for the unemployed. This is also done in some places for poor sites if no other land is currently available, or to return land to cultivation. It may be more effective in environment and other terms to rotovate "difficult" plots, provide topsoil etc., which may be charged for but that may discourage people new to cultivation. Schemes to recycle council area waste provide an obvious answer especially for difficult (i.e., long uncultivated plots). Finally, many sites have rents of £10 per year per plot, which would seem extremely low. Given that most plotters are not retired, the likely increase here may be to double the income from plots.

If this can be negotiated with plotters alongside a broader platform of management and maintenance this will obviously have a greater chance of success. I recommend a two-year programme to achieve this adjustment of rents. Taking on board my remarks over several paragraphs, this could substantially reduce costs and deliver also a greater community-visible value from allotments. We note the increasing proportions of plotters who are not retired, most of whom will be able to pay higher rents.

   -    Thus, we could substantially reduce the cost of allotments to local councils.


   -    Hence we could substantially increase the value and utility of allotments to local councils.


   -    Hence allotments become resources for local councils to include within their green programmes for environmental regeneration, as allotments.

  In many of my notes here, responsibility is shared between plotters and councils, saving money, making local democracy work, visibly. Local press are always keen to feature allotments. Further opportunities include sponsorship of allotment events, especially if they include the wider local population at large. It is important for/that local allotment people/associations recognise and respond to these possibilities in order to embed the allotments in the local community. This is a much more secure way to future security than keeping people out at all times.

  Waiting lists and vacancies are I understand one key focus of - I would say - too much "instant reading". I have made the point in the Report of Survey that the relationship between these two is small, perhaps negligible: if you don't know there is an allotment near you, or that it has vacant plots, or that it is possible for anyone to rent a plot, if you have an image that allotment holders are all old, then many people will not apply for one; some people have been put off by grumpy attitudes amongst plotters, but not a serious number; if the site is poorly looked after, if the allotments are not brought in as part of the active community (e.g., events, produce, links with local hospitals for flowers and fruit) then there is more chance of empty plots. These issues are shared responsibilities of local councils and plotters themselves (and should be). If there is rumour that a site is to be developed, then rapidly people leave their sites as they have anxiety over continued investment of their life in it for a very short horizon of return (here I disagree with my colleague Michael Leaman in the Evening Standard - not all plotters are prepared or able to "stay on and fight").

  Finally on this pair of evidence, many councils do not play any active part in waiting list maintenance - it should be shared with the plotters, who may be more proactive. Many of the points I raise elsewhere in this report/response address "full use" strategies . They are not costly, and many are indeed free to local councils (e.g., allotment holders erect a sign, kept updated, etc., place items in the local press).

  Security IS an important issue in terms of basic vandalism and theft. It has been less serious in recent years.

It does not provide the main reason for vacant plots, but locally can be important. Together, plotters and local councils share the role of security, and this should be assisted through an allotment sub-committee.

  Allotments are an important component of Sustainable Cities. This is acknowledged by numerous local councils and now in action by the Local Government Management Board which has (February 1998) included commitment to the importance of allotments in its core strategy on Agenda 21, linking food growing in cities with poverty programmes. Contact is: Jane Morris, LGMB.

  Allotments are recognised features in community development, which is also part of the LGMB strategy.

  Local Plans should be required to include a statement of policy on allotments in terms of Agenda 21, environment/amenity and future policy.

  Consultation - committees: every local council should be required once more to establish a sub-committee to secure the proper consultation over the maintenance, management and future of allotment land by establishing allotment sub-committees, as in the case of Birmingham and many others. (This requirement was removed from statute in the early 1980s.)

  Representatives of local allotment holders should be 50 per cent of the sub-committee's membership and be voted by the plotholders or nominated through its local association. All allotments singly or in areas should be urged to establish associations.

  This would enable every measure to make full use of both allotment holders and their local association as well as the local council offices in maintaining, managing and promoting allotments, if necessary negotiating flexible and publicly-accessible uses of land as other open space on a temporary basis.

  Promotion: Local councils and their constituent plotholders should be required to arrange at minimal cost the appropriate, cheap and effective promotion of allotments locally. This costs next to nothing. It includes a sign clearly visible to the public announcing the name of the site, the association and council contact name and phone no./address; whether/that plots are available and that anyone living in the area is eligible to obtain one if available. In addition local councils should include a notice in the local press to the same effect over three weeks in the early spring; and the allotment holders should maintain the sign and make sure it remains visible. Both share a responsibility to place news items with the local press to further the promotion.

  Maintenance should be seen as something shared and negotiated between local councils and allotment holders, with resource increase and cost savings in mind, including those (e.g., Bradford) opportunities for recycling of Council's awkward, expensive and environmentally unfriendly waste (e.g., Bradford).

  Role of central government: to ensure, through legislation if necessary, the rightful resource-delivering and conserving role that allotments have. In providing the appropriate procedure to secure allotment land in the future, which currently means also checking on Statutory site "disposal".

  Role of local government: as listed extensively in this document. The ideas here, however, relate inversely to the community/environment/political return allotments have and will continue to have, if handled as recommended here.

  Site protection: allotment land should be given green belt status. This would be required of all local councils.

This should include all Statutory sites and all "temporary" sites that have been temporary allotments for a minimum period of say seven years, unless the Council is able to demonstrate to the DoE reasons otherwise, which should be submitted within a short period of say three months to the DoE. Statutory sites should continue with their procedural rules as at present. Whether or not it is decided to relax or abandon these procedures then any alienation to develop these sites should include in its case (to the DOETR or to the local Council) evidence of promotion, track record of policy, the present and most immediate past three years of vacancy figures (if any), and evidence of consultant with local allotment holders. Temporary sites should be transferred to Statutory status as noted above.

DATA

  The Survey of Allotments in England provides a good first base to make sense of allotments in England today - there is of course most of the Welsh data also available. I have made clear recommendations in my Survey report of the kind of investigators, of much smaller scale, that are needed, e.g., into vacant sites. There is also much further data available in that survey as yet unused, on management, on costs, on policy, consultation, etc. This needs to be done.

  Housing Land was featured in recent Inquiry reports in the media as the more-than-coincidence of the Inquiry at this time. Allotments are NOT "brown field" sites; allotments are of at least the value of green belt land, and in almost every case more productive and more accessible to large numbers of people very easily, and especially those without resources or free from disability to reach them (as compared with more distant green belt fields).

In comparison, the "rural lobby" is very vociferous, although with a third of a million families with allotments, their number is substantial, just less politically well-connected at present, however, classic cases across the country of allotment holders demonstrating the community-wide value of what they do is gradually changing the picture. I argue, as Professor of Cultural Geography and Head of a University Research unit of Rural Development and Leisure, that an allotment site is enormously more valuable ecologically and in terms of community, of ordinary people, than an average field in the country of the same size (not least, some allotment sites are registered nature reserves, others owned by the English Heritage).

  If I may briefly make a further "housing" point. As I was an Associate member of the Institute of Housing (now CloH) during the nineteen eighties, and a member of its Education Board, and previously worked for Shelter, I have a very thorough awareness of and concern for housing issues. During the eighties I was also a Member of the RTPI (Planning). The projected "four million homes" is open to enormous misreading. The main reason for the "projection" not forecast (and done mainly in research financed by the House Builders Federation) is household "fission", break-up. This means more small households. The households that would be built under present circumstances are not small. This means we can increase the housing stock already available in some areas by enabling creative subdivision of existing stock, NOT build more houses. Two units can be turned into three, sometimes even four, with creative design. The seventies in inner suburban London provided numerous examples of this being done extremely well. This is enormously politically acceptable, and would permit much better targeting of positions within the housing market at which houses so produced would become available. There are numerous precedents for this kind of approach and mechanisms to do so over the last two decades or so.

  Providing allotments and other green sustainable places responds to the key reason why people seek to leave the urban area - a lack of space, especially in terms of good environments to bring up children. Allotments provide already one part of this future.

  Thus we see allotments reinvented for the twenty-first century.

March 1998