List of local authority owned allotments

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  John Perry said...

  Can you check on rents as we pay the highest at £117 for a 10m x 30m plot, that,ll make a good survey.

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    Richard said...

    Hi John, thanks for the tips. We are planning on doing a full questionnaire to all UK allotment holders and I think asking what rents they pay would be a good question.

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  John Perry said...

  We have 184 plots on site, located approx. 2mile from golden beaches also a vibrant and growing Facebook following. We have a small shop onsite. The plotholders are a mix of all nationalities, status and lots of new younger families with children this creates a family spirit throughout the whole site.
  The site has an ancient right of way running through it. Northfield is council owned and we pay rent, there is an accompanied site inspection once a month with a council Allotment rep. Hope this helps with your efforts.

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  Eileen Young said...

  Interesting stuff, I will share with the rest of the team.

  It says in the chart there are only 4 allotment sites in Nuneaton, There are more sites than that,

  We would be happy to participate on any survey and sharing of information

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    Richard said...

    Thanks Eileen, we will drop you and email so we can update the Nuneaton numbers.

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  Jacqui Thurgood said...

  I have an allotment in Harlow, and it is interesting that a total of 34 allotment sites is listed. I know of several of these nearby that have been completely left to abandonment, not being let, and wonder if it is the start of selling them off as housing areas. The council are extremely slow to let plots when they become available, as we know from experience on our site, so perhaps there are more closures planned.

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    Richard said...

    Thanks for commenting Jacqui, we got the Harlow data from https://www.harlow.gov.uk/allotments

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  Clare Stimson said...

  I have an allotment in Great Massingham, in Kings Lynn & West Norfolk BC. My allotment is through the Parish Council, and I believe many in the borough. There are definitely more than 5 sites. There’s also some owned by the local Housing Association, Freebridge.

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    Richard said...

    Thanks for commenting Clare, finding out all the allotments that are managed on a Town or Parish Council level is a little more tricky hence reaching out to the allotment community to help clarify things. The data we are using for King’s Lynn comes direct from https://www.west-norfolk.gov.uk/info/20066/allotments/586/find_your_nearest_allotment The figure for King’s Lynn could more accurately be 11. The whole survey is still in progress so we will update all the numbers as they come in. When the numbers are as complete as possible I think we will mark them as green in the table and add some notes explaining how each number was arrived at.

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  Colin Saunderson said...

  Hill Rise Allotments are on land either owned by the town council (roughly 170 plots) or rented from the District Council (another 50 plots) The soil is heavy clay and, as the name indicates, on top of a hill so susceptible at times to strong winds. HRAA have a plot with compounds for compost or soil improver, manure and, at times, wood chips. We account for about 40% of the plots. There is usually a waiting list for plots.
  Huntingdon Town Council have four sites and are quite supportive.
  Hemingford Grey have 24 plots on a field that I think the parish council own. in 1975 we had to overthrow the parish council at the ballot box to get allotments.
  Earith have 40 plots on land owned or rented by the PC.
  Fenstanton land is owned by the church. Don’t know the number but could find out.

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  Colin Saunderson said...

  Further comment on Godmanchester.
  There are 90 plots and rent is payable to the town council.
  The site is divided by a road. The local association have steel containers in which are stored chemicals and other requisites for sale to members as is manure,

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  Mike Birks said...

  At Middlezoy, Somerset we have managed to keep rents low at current £35/year and an overall payment of £400/ year for 36 plots this is due to very reasonable rent from the land owner and low running costs. Our rent is paid through the Parish Council which helps to guarantee payment to the owner.
  Good information on this site

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    Richard said...

    Thanks for the information Mike. Its quite hard to drill down to the Parish level and get all the data so this sort of information is really helpful.

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  Wheelbarrowlady said...

  I believe we are in a fortunate position at this moment with our local authority being able to bid for some funding from the Community Levy infrastructure funds. We have an active townwide allotment Forum and each site has a representative, most of whom belong to the working group which work with the local Council to form strategies to get the best for allotments. We have recently worked hard to introduce a new set of rules, robust enough to deal with most situations and also a tighter procedure to ensure allotments are not left abandoned for lengthy periods ( we have a long waiting list). We have also discussed water provision and methods of conserving water ( watering crops with a hose is no longer permitted, with our complete agreement).
  Our Forum was originally formed to counteract the selling off of allotment land for housing, which was done as there was no active opposition at that time. Since our formation no further sites have been sold.
  We have a thriving seed and sundries sales shed on one site and it enables us to buy items at very reasonable prices and obtain horticultural grade products ( not as easily obtained buy individuals).

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  Mike Peverill said...

  Hi, this looks really interesting and useful. A couple of thoughts spring to mind – although the numbers given provide a useful overview and insight, the number of direct let council allotment sites doesn’t tell the full story. The number of actual plots and/or total area of the sites would help give a more complete picture along with similar data for leasehold sites (and even private sites).

  It would also be fab to have such data on a GIS type mapping tool so it can be more easily visualised and interrogated. There’s some useful data and interpretation in this Nottingham City Council 2014 report: https://committee.nottinghamcity.gov.uk/documents/s9711/allotmentsreviewreport.pdf

  Your total number on the map of 4,921 is presumably allotment sites rather than allotments? The report above indicates that there’s a total of around 3,450 allotments in Nottingham alone (670 of which are on one 75 acre site), hence the total number for England & Wales would presumably be in the tens or hundreds of thousands?
  Thanks

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    Richard said...

    Hi Mike, Its funny you talk about the number of plots and it been a more useful stat. We do have that data for a lot of the Local Authorities but not all openly display this data. As such we only have plot numbers for about half the Local Authorities at the moment. As we get a more complete set of data we will also publish this data on the site. We can say with certainty that the total number of plots is in the hundreds of thousands.

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  Chris Thorp said...

  There are 25 Council owned sites in Worcester, of which two are fully self-managed paying the Council a rent for the sites. There are also a small number of privately owned or parish managed site. The other 23 Council sites, containing some 900 plots or so, have elected Site Reps who together make of the Allotment Forum. The Forum meets monthly and works with the Council to deliver the best allotments experience for all that can be managed. It acts as the primary communications channel feeding plotholder concerns & issues to the Council for action, and helping formulate Council policies, rules, agreeing the annual Rent in a 5 Year Plan, etc. The Forum has its own Constitution to help bring consistency to how it operates. Individual Plotholders rent their plots directly from the Council, which is responsible for all legal and financial matters, though some sites have an on-site ‘association’ to help develop and manage the site on day-to-day matters.

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    Richard said...

    Thanks for the information Chris.

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  Martyn Dowsett said...

  Capel St Mary In Suffolk has an allotment site, the local Parish Council are responsible but management has been devolved to the Caple St Mary Allotments Association. I can provide or obtain any information you require.

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  Sarah Holmes said...

  This is a really useful blog post. Thank you

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