Allotments

One thing I am regularly asked is WHY and what they really mean is why do I buy land and turn them into allotments and why? Is it lucrative and how much profit can I make and what work is involved and they are surprised when I say none of them as it is NOT about money which surprises many and they often want to know what is involved and what it costs and my stock response is none of your fuc*ing business.

So the question remains, why do I do it and what is involved and is it actually possible for anyone to do it and the answer is yes.

Allotments are covered by specific legislation and the local councils have to provide specific numbers of plots to grow on and generally these were allotments, at the turn of the 1900’s every mew house was supposedly built to the 100’ rule meaning the plot must be 100 feet long as this was deemed sufficient to grow adequate produce to sustain a family reasonably well as it had sufficient growing space and it was up to the occupant how he used his land; remember families were larger then. At the outbreak of WW1 the country was short of food as even back then we imported a lot of our food and during the war we came as close as we have ever been to being self sufficient in food and to ensure there is no uncertainty, the UK has never been self sufficient in food and in recent years we have imported so much food we rely on many countries to supply our food; often from countries whose populations are starving themselves.
Following on from WW1 the population often continued to grow their own food or at least a proportion of it and this is the reason country people were healthier and not the country air as many people claimed, it was the unprocessed and chemical free home grown foods and we have really only recently learned this lesson.

WW2 saw an explosion in food growing when the UK relied upon more foods from abroad than ever before and the Nazis knew an army marches on its stomach and that a civilian population left behind needs sustaining to run the specific industries to provide the war machine with everything it requires from weapons to ammunition. Imports of food are totally necessary to feed a population and WW2 highlighted this issue and is why so important to protect our food convoy ships coming from abroad as the UK is a small island by comparison and we don’t have the space or climatic conditions to grow all our food. As years passed a population wanted and needed more foods and the food industry obliged by producing more foods and much of it is grown under artificial conditions so people can have their strawberries at Christmas, even though they taste horrible and are bullets.

Most of my land comes from local farmers having useless land and often this is due to agricultural equipment becoming larger as fields have become larger and these larger implements like fields with rounded edges and not corners as stopping to reverse an implement into a corner takes time and time is money. This means many parts of an irregularly shaped field cannot be used and if it is unusable it is wasted space and wasted space is no good to a farmer as intensive farming methods dictate all space is used efficiently to produce high crop yields. What do I look for? a good question, and the first thing is accessibility as many people come by car or van and they need space to park and unload, the next is water and by water I mean fresh and not contaminated water and a space which can accommodate allotments of all sizes.
From here we formulate a plan and do a basic layout of the land and work out how many allotments it can accommodate and in what location, and finally the finances as it needs to cover its costs and not particularly make a profit; if it makes any profit it is a very small one which wouldn’t buy a round of drinks.
If agricultural land is used it means no planning as under permitted development it was agricultural land and remains as agricultural land so not even a change of use and this makes the process easier and cheaper.

When I secure land there has to be specific conditions in place and the first would be access as land without access is worthless; so access becomes a critical contractual requirement; another may be that nobody parks on access roads as many may be farm or other tracks and often with a footpath or other easement. When there may be other conditions such as not parking on the access road as we do not own it but have access with reasonable conditions and these need to be made very clear to any potential users as it will be a contractual condition.

We begin by fencing the site off and laying out the car park as we need to also park equipment and the first job is to clear it and this begins with cutting down any trees and we don’t waste the timber as this is seasoned for future projects and treated by dipping in creosote and yes businesses can still get it. Posts are cut to size and put in 45 gallon drums and these are part filled with creosote and the dried timber sucks it up and when it is filled with creosote (after about a month) we turn it round and insert the other end and let this end soak it up and eventually it becomes impregnated with creosote. Now they are put away and stored. Larger trunk or branch sections are cut into 7 metre lengths and put on the trailer and taken back to my large band saw which is powered by a diesel engine and it cuts the trunk/thick branches into boards of various thicknesses as required and it is put out to season and covered. Smaller pieces are not wasted as they are shredded and used as mulch or for burning and the thicker pieces are seasoned for log burners and shredded willow burns quickly, but smoulders for hours and is excellent in a closed fire as it also spits a lot. Any tree roots are dug up and totally removed and with all the trees removed we get the flail and flail any hedges down to the ground and dig the roots up and they are put to one side; it is now the turn of any grass and this is cut down with a topper to the lowest setting. This is now scraped and I have a special bucket for this and the scraping rolls the grass up into large rolls which are stacked and with the ground back to soil it is time to make and add nutrients and we get the hedge and make pyramids which are lit and once alight we cut the grass sods and put them face in to the fire and leave them as it takes several days for them to smoulder down and we have turned our grass and hedging into potash. This is spread all over the plot and we spread plenty of well rotted muck on top of it and we make our first ploughing cut and cut as deep as the plough allows to get the muck and potash well into the soil, this is usually left for a couple of weeks to allow the worms to work the soil then it is given a second plough and then tilled to fine soil. With this fine soil we add our home made compost and this is allowed to sit on the soil until we work it in as much of this ground contains stale soil and the stale soil needs refreshing with nutrients.

With the soil finished we mark the boundary and get agreements with surrounding land owners to access their land and we install our large creosote treated fence posts we have made ourselves and have 10’ sticking out of the ground and the piece below ground is covered in something called bale wrap which is basically super tough cling film on steroids. We auger holes instead of using prick posts and hammering them in as the auger gives a good indication of the lower ground and the treated posts are virtually upright once in their holes an require the minimum of ramming to secure them; we then assemble fencing wire along the entire bottom edge and use second hand Arras fencing between the posts as a couple of local companies give us their lightly damaged panels.
We cut grooves for our water pipes and usually install a possible water tank with most of it under ground and make our collection point from the water source and for a stream we may make a concrete pad to put our pump on and connect it to our main supply pipe so the plot holders can pump water from the water source to the main storage tank and potentially onto any IBC or other water storage they may have.

With basic water connected we install our paths and car park top as the ground is usually pretty churned up and we use crushed hardcore from a friends nearby farm as he has a side line crushing hardcore to be reused and always has several hundred tonnes lying around and generally we borrow a large tracked machine to compact it down before using a wacker plate on it and finally compacting it into the harder soils and top it off.

With paths finished it is time to mark out the plots and they come in different sizes for many reasons and initially this is because from around 1980 local councils began selling off allotments to property developers and claiming there was no demand for them and to be fair there wasn’t that much demand because often they were remote with no real security. Secondly, many gardeners range from total beginners to total experts with everything in between as well as organisations and training schemes and even a local natural medication manufacturer. One problem is that total novices underestimate the amount of work and time a full size allotment takes and they spend so much time looking after their allotment they often neglect other family members and duties and for younger gardeners with a wife and a couple of small children this can be an issue and a smaller plot means easier management and less time taken up while still producing reasonable quantities of produce. In essence a small plot is an ideal starter plot where people can refine their growing skills and a single person or a couple, or even a couple with a young family can do something together and the food they produce can save a lot of money and the wisdom and experience of older gardeners assists them immensely; as their skills develop they learn how to correctly manage their lives and growing food and can leave their plot for a larger one and a new starter takes the plot over. Better this than have someone take on too much and give up totally on gardening when a little encouragement and management of garden chores means they can grow large quantities of their foods and dedicate ample time to their families.
Older gardeners are usually middle aged with older children who go off and do their own thing and as they have more time they often work as a couple and both of them work their plot with the man generally doing the bulk of the heavier work and the woman doing a lot of finessing as sexual equality hasn’t reached gardening yet; fortunately. Also in this equation are those with children leaving home and their food requirement drops so a smaller plot and less work means they counter slowing down with age by growing less and working less and often the wife or lady friend comes up to the allotment and undertake many other pastimes as we have a woman who grows grapes for her bees and who makes her own honey and wins many local and national awards.

We have the local food banks and two of them have large plots and they grow a lot of their own fresh produce which goes out locally through their own food bank and they both have four main gardeners and a number of casual helpers who assist in food production or simply assisting during harvesting times and cleaning the produce or bagging it up for the end users. We have a fairly local company making natural health treatments for a range of issues and they use 100% natural products and they do it commercially and pay much more for their plot as it is large and to achieve their certification everything has to be 100% natural with no chemicals.

One local training company have a large plot because they teach gardening or should we say landscape gardening as they produce everything themselves and they also grow a lot of their own foods and the students do this to achieve their qualifications and often they assist older gardeners with difficult tasks and this creates a mix of old and young and both parties learn things as you can’t teach experience or teach strength. Most of their foods go straight into their canteen as they also train basic cooking through to chefs and large quantities of fresh produce means they start out correctly and use local fresh ingredients and unsurprisingly they learn how to deal with fresh foods as they are different from preserved foods in taste and preparation.

Some locals just want a hobby and they use all types of foods and we have a very active winemaking circle and it isn’t about the bling of fancy bottles, corks and labels as its about the contents of the bottles and how good their wine tastes and bling is a distraction.

In short we have very few rules and the first is respecting other gardeners and not hogging the car park or blocking the paths and the second is no chemicals such as chemical sprays, natural chemicals are fine as the company producing natural products cannot have any cross contamination as they have certification requirements to conform to. Most things we use are best well rotted muck and crop rotation, natural chemicals such as standard lime or simply shredded and composted materials such as compost and leaf mould along with home made feeds made from waste.

All in all we have a thriving community of gardeners and not on one plot and while they may be a plot community they also integrate with other plots I own and form a larger community which gives purchasing power and savings for everyone, we host our own gardening shows and use a proportion of the produce for our cookery classes.

our council have put the rent up again this year, last year they upped it by £10 and this year they have raise it again by another £25

Following a review of Allotment rental charges for 2024/2025 we’ve had to take the
difficult decision to increase charges due a significant increase in costs across the
service. Previously, the Council has heavily subsidised the cost of providing an
allotments service, however, due to the Council’s current financial position and the
financial challenges it faces, it can no longer afford to do so at the level it has done
previously.
With effect from 1st April 2024, allotment rent charges will increase to £101.00 per
plot.
The full annual fee equates to a cost of £1.94 per week and in our view, we believe
that this still represents good value for those committed to growing in Bradford.
Following a review of concessionary rents, there will also be some changes to the
concessions we apply, which will bring us inline with those offered by other local
authorities.
At present, a concessionary rent providing a discount is available to the following
groups:
• Pensionable Age
• Disability
• Unemployed
• Students
• Charities
• Allotment Associations
• Site Representatives
As from 1

st April 2024, only the following concessions will apply:
• Pensioners in receipt of a means tested benefit (Pension Credit)
• Unemployed and in receipt of Universal Credit or legacy benefit
• Disability and in receipt of Universal Credit, ESA (enhanced or severe
disability premium) or legacy benefit
This does mean that those in receipt of state pension will no longer be automatically
entitled to a concession unless they are receiving a means tested benefit.

so the reason is their own miss managed finances which we now have to pay for again and to top it off they cut the concessions that people can apply for. Its disgraceful.

Would it be worth a look at the Equality Act 2010 ?

No i dont think so, there is no discrimination of a protected characteristic.

Thir tightening up of the disability definition might. Someone can be disabled as defined in the EA but not receive any of the benefits listed.

Also a bit underhand saying "in receipt of" rather than "entitled to"