Inexplicably, allotments have been in the news this week. Responding to a parliamentary question raised by Kevin Hollingrake, the government confirmed that Angela Rayner had approved the disposal of eight allotments by the local authorities that own them.
“Is this government going to put the nail in the coffin of the joy of digging ground for potatoes on a cold, wet February Sunday afternoon?” pondered Jeremy Corbyn in a letter to the famously left-leaning Telegraph. Of course, Angela Rayner didn’t instruct these sales, but under the Allotments Act of 1925, has the final say on whether their disposal can take place.
The Ordnance Survey’s green space dataset counts around 150,000 allotments in the UK, although reports elsewhere suggest there’s more than double this figure. Clearly the loss of eight of these is a tiny fraction of the total amount, but could the release of a few more redundant growing spaces really be a practical means to build new homes – particularly in urban areas where the need is greatest?
London alone has around 770 allotments across 31 boroughs. Only the City of London and Kensington & Chelsea are without at least one allotment within their boundary.
By and large, allotments don’t take up much space: just shy of 1,000 hectares in total. That’s about one third of one percent of London’s total area.
The largest single allotment in the city is the Fuel Land Allotments in Finchley, Barnet, which is around 11.5 hectares. It’s owned by The Finchley Charities, a small housing association that provides housing for elderly people. Its foreboding steel fence that faces the Great North Road conceals a vast landscape of neatly parallel plots extending into the distance.
Coming a close second is the Addiscombe, Woodside & Shirley Leisure Gardens, a privately-owned allotment society in Croydon with a total area of around 10.5 hectares.
These are far from the norm. The median size of London’s allotments is a modest three-quarters of a hectare. Barnet, home to London’s largest allotment, also has the most space dedicated to them, with just over 100 hectares of growing space.
Haringey has the largest proportion of its area occupied by allotments, but even then it’s only a modest 1.4%.
Their size pales into insignificance when compared to the city’s golf courses, however. The amount of space dedicated to hitting a little white ball around is the same as a mid-sized borough; together allotments occupy about the same area as Richmond Park.
Even if we were to build homes across every plot in the capital, how many homes might result? At a reasonably dense 50 dwellings per hectare, replacing peas with people would yield about 48,000 homes—just six months’ supply. This perhaps is a battle that even the developer-friendly Labour government would be unwise to fight.
Losing local authority land to housing isn’t the whole story, however. While allotments provide vital outside space for many people who have none at home, waiting lists in many parts of London are decades long, and because of this, favour long-term residents. There are many examples of owners objecting to development adjacent to their plots, in some of the best located and most appropriate locations for new homes. Anecdotally, many of those continuing to enjoy the benefit of allotments for many years no longer live in the same borough – or even the same city – as their discounted growing plot. One can imagine how a young person who is struggling to find a home might consider it unfair that publicly-owned but privately-managed space is rented at low cost to those who are no longer residents of the borough.
This week’s hoo-ha around the disposal of a few surplus allotments is likely to quickly fade. There are far easier—are considerably larger—locations for housing than allotments. The capital’s comedic carrots and amusing marrows are safe, for now.