Begging on the End of the Good Life in Brum Options

[Simon Kirby]

BBC Brum is reporting how Birmingham City Council is advertising for allotmenteers to fill vacancies on the City Council's allotment sites. BCC has 7,000 plots spread over 115 sites - the most of any local authority in the country - and where a few years ago there were long waiting lists, they now have one in seven plots vacant.

The allotment as a notion is secure in the English psyche with Dig for Victory as familiar a campaign from the Second World War as the Battle of Britain and the Normandy Landings, but despite Felicity Kendal fanning a resurgence of interest in the 70's, allotmenteering has been in a steady decline, and it looks as though the recent popularity of the hobby might just be waning.

In medieval England the labouring poor were able to grow themselves food in the commons, but with the Enclosures that enabled the agricultural and industrial revolutions, the commons were packaged up into private ownership and the labouring poor were dispossessed. From the start of the Enclosure period there had been some small ad-hoc provision for the labouring poor but by the early twentieth century legislation was passed which rationalised the situation and obliged the newly formed secular parish councils to provide sufficient plots for their parishioners at reasonable agricultural rents. This legislation was braced up several times to accommodate the needs of soldiers returning from the trenches of the first World War, and then once more in 1950 to better reflect post-war values in what was essentially still Edwardian and Victorian legislation.

From a peak of 1.5 million plots in the 40's there are now around 250,000 plots left. Allotment sites have some protection from development, but in practice it's easy for a local authority to sell redundant allotment sites for housing, and very many sites were sold like that. The Thorpe Report of the 60's recommended a mandatory minimum level of allotment provision, but the recommendations of the report were never carried through into legislation, and while the 100 year old requirement on parishes to provide sufficient allotments still stands, declining interest in allotments has mostly made it safe for parish councils to ignore their duty as their parishes developed and grew, simply holding out through peaks in interest with long waiting lists, and selling off redundant sites in the sloughs.

Last year was a terrible year for gardeners, and this year looks to be no better, and Brum's report of one in seven plots standing vacant looks as though the interest in allotmenteering may be waning. Allotments have always been cheap because the rent reflects a reasonable charge for agricultural land, and that's basically just a couple of quid for the size of a typical allotment. As council finances have been squeezed over the last few years many councils have ramped up their allotment rents, and Brum is not unique in doubling rents. This may also have dampened enthusiasm, and certainly it has caused some unrest, but the over-sixties still make up the bulk of allotmenteers and the pensioner rent for a large plot in Brum is still £45 which is pretty good value, and that is a very big plot, so rent may not be so significant.

My friend Betty is the site secretary at Walsall Road allotments that's mentioned in the BBC Brum article. Like 80% of the City Council's sites, Walsall Road is self-managed by the site association. It is probably one of the best managed and happiest sites in the country, with a diverse mix of individuals all knocking along beautifully - allotment society at its best. This is some of the allotmenteers sitting outside their site hut. I'm going up to join them soon for one of their open days - if anyone wants to know what a good site ooks like you're welcome to come up with me and meet them.


It seems to me inevitable that the allotment bubble will burst. Allotmenteering is hard graft and takes a lot of time. I'm pleased it saw a revival, but I do worry what will happen to the allotment movement as councils look to sell their redundant assets. We talk about food security and food miles and stuff like that, and it's been fashionable to bang-on about it for the last few years, but I don't believe the allotment movement adapted well to the resurgence of interest and, much like the boom-and-bust of national politics in the years since the Good Life, I fear that the allotment movement is now in for a protracted recession.

[Andy Capp]

Supermarkets are killing allotments!

[NWNREADER]

Supermarkets are killing allotments!

Weedol or Roundup?

[user23]

Surely there must be an allotment forum you could post this on?

[On the edge]

Ironically, its the only statutory duty of our dear parish council. Its also one where which seems to be costing us money, rather than breaking even, or heaven forbid, making a contribution. Never mind, why let economy and efficiency get in the way of good old English local government!

[Simon Kirby]

Supermarkets are killing allotments!

I'm not so sure that the supermarkets are responsible as such, I think it has more to do with disposable income and time.

Many of my Dad's generation grew fruit and veg because that's where fruit and veg came from - the garden. They didn't have the disposable income to spend on stuff they could grow themselves, but that was changing. For the baby-boomers families had more money as mothers went out to work. The standard of living was rising and people could afford to own a car and buy more stuff. Sure enough supermarkets evolved to satisfy the market, but the market was created by the post-war prosperity and aspiration - to start with people didn't want to grow dirty old vegetables when they could buy nice shiny new ones in the modern supermarket, and then progressively people stopped buying fresh vegetables altogether and bought prepared tinned and frozen veg, and then finally just bought ready meals.

That trend has reversed a couple of times. In the seventies the Good Life sowed the seeds of aspiration for middle-class mid-lifers to escape the monotony and grind of the suburban rat-race and find peace and fulfilment in growing their own. Then in the 2000's our affluence came full circle and now for the generation that learnt its gardening from Alan Titchmarsh it wasn't good enough just to buy Organic, the dedicated middle-class had to have an allotment and grow their own. It's this TV lifestyle schtick that I think has probably now run its course.

[Simon Kirby]

Ironically, its the only statutory duty of our dear parish council. Its also one where which seems to be costing us money, rather than breaking even, or heaven forbid, making a contribution. Never mind, why let economy and efficiency get in the way of good old English local government!

Indeed. Well, in actual fact parish councils also have a duty under section 32 of the Charities Act 1960 to receive accounts of parochial charities, but other than that the only positive duty on parish councils (such as our own town council) is the duty to provide allotments.

23 Duty of certain councils to provide allotments.

(1) If the council of any borough, urban district, or parish are of opinion that there is a demand for allotments in the borough, urban district, or parish, the council shall provide a sufficient number of allotments, and shall let such allotments to persons resident in the borough, district, or parish, and desiring to take the same.

That the power is expressed as a duty is important: Duties are things that a council must do without exception or excuse. Almost everything that a parish council is empowered to do is optional, but the provision of sufficient allotments for its parishioners is the only service that a parish is positively required to provide for its parishioners.

Few of Newbury's parish neighbours provide allotments, and Greenham PC in particular might well want to consider what its priorities for public spending should be. Newbury Town Council lets allotments to Greenham parishioners, but the cost of providing those allotments falls on the Newbury council tax payers - a net cost to the tax-payer of approximately £200 per plot. Of course the 1973 Local Government Act allows Greenham and Newbury to contract with each other for the provision of allotments so if Greenham wants to provide its residents with an allotment service it can buy provision from Newbury at cost, around £250 per plot, and then let those plots to its own parishioners.

Notice too that the duty only appears to allow a council to let allotments to its own parishioners. Whilst Newbury can contract with Greenham so that Greenham lets plots to its own parishioners, it doesn't look as though Newbury itself is able to let plots to anyone who isn't a resident of Newbury parish. That has been council policy for a couple of years now, but it does raise the uncomfortable possibility that NTC has been acting ultra vires in previous years and that the councillors are personally liable for the cost of providing plots to people outside the parish - that's a charge of around £10 per plot per year. Say there's 50 residents outwith the parish, all with plots for the last 10 years, that's a potential bill for each NTC councillor of £1000.

Last point is to note that the duty is to provide sufficient allotments. It's not enough to a council to provide some allotments, the council needs to provide enough allotments, sufficient for every parishioner who wants one to have as big a plot as she wants without any waiting lists or restriction of size. NTC passed a resolution last year as part of its suppression of free speech which purports to allow it to choose which parishioners it lets its plots too and not to let plots to parishioners who criticise it, and I have an indefinite ban on taking an allotment in Newbury because of that resolution, but that would appear to be unlawful. NTC has been rationing the size of its plots for several years and on some sites the waiting lists have been quite large. However that may well change now, and I understand that some of Newbury's sites again have vacant plots.

On the point of cost it's worth noting that even for councils who directly manage their sites Newbury's costs are inexplicably high. The running costs are not exceptional, but the administration costs are frankly perverse with the council spending the best part of six hours of direct administration per plot, and the same kind of costs again in back-office administration. The full commercial net cost to the tax-payer of the allotment service is in the order of £100k. 80% of BCC's sites are self-managed with the site associations doing the administration voluntarily, so not only does this keep the cost down, but the allotmenteers enjoy doing it too. BCC still does most of the site maintenance and that is quite a significant cost, but other councils have gone further and devolved all of the administration onto the site associations and some of these associations run the council's entire allotment service at zero cost to the tax payer, and they manage that whilst charging some of the lowest allotment rents going.

This was what I though Dave's Big Society was going to look like - people being allowed to get involved in doing stuff for themselves, not so much because it saved money, but because it was enjoyable and built community. In practice local government is a gravy train and no one riding that train was ever going to hand lucrative franchises back to the users, and certainly not when the users have become so inured to their local government nanny that they no longer care about community or self-reliance.

[user23]

Ironically, its the only statutory duty of our dear parish council. Its also one where which seems to be costing us money, rather than breaking even, or heaven forbid, making a contribution. Never mind, why let economy and efficiency get in the way of good old English local government!

Why not change the law, sell them off and let the private sector run them, setting rents at market value for the land, if money is the primary concern?

[Simon Kirby]

Why not change the law, sell them off and let the private sector run them, setting rents at market value for the land, if money is the primary concern?

No need to change the law, the allotment acts already allow local authorities to devolve the service onto voluntary site association, and if money is the primary concern this is a win-win because the service is provided at no cost to the tax-payer, and because the service is provided by volunteers the service users also get a better cheaper service.

Actually that's a good way to go even if money isn't the primary concern, because self-managed sites tend to be better run and happier by virtue of the community that naturally develops.

Lost of evidence to this effect was submitted to the parliamentary committee of enquiry into the future of allotments - if you want to make an informed contribution to the debate you'd do well to research that.

[On the edge]

Why not change the law, sell them off and let the private sector run them, setting rents at market value for the land, if money is the primary concern?

Absolutely nothing wrong with breaking even. No legislative changes needed, just some common sense. Let those who actually know about services deliver them.

[user23]

No need to change the law, the allotment acts already allow local authorities to devolve the service onto voluntary site association, and if money is the primary concern this is a win-win because the service is provided at no cost to the tax-payer, and because the service is provided by volunteers the service users also get a better cheaper service.

Actually that's a good way to go even if money isn't the primary concern, because self-managed sites tend to be better run and happier by virtue of the community that naturally develops.

Lost of evidence to this effect was submitted to the parliamentary committee of enquiry into the future of allotments - if you want to make an informed contribution to the debate you'd do well to research that.

I said sell them off to the private sector, not devolve the service onto a voluntary site association.

Then charge rents at market prices for the land, removing the taxpayer subsidy.

[Andy Capp]

I said sell them off to the private sector, not devolve the service onto a voluntary site association.

Even more private land within our community. I don't like that idea at all. Especially when a no-cost option exists.

[Simon Kirby]

I said sell them off to the private sector, not devolve the service onto a voluntary site association.

Then charge rents at market prices for the land, removing the taxpayer subsidy.

Yes, I read what you said. You proposed a solution to the proposition that money is the primary concern, but your solution just wasn't very good. If you want to sell allotment sites on the open market with no strings attached then that would require primary legislation and in effect it would destroy the allotment movement. I can't see any government wanting to do that because of the social and environmental benefit that allotments bring.

In quite a few cases allotment sites are already owned in trust by the local authority for the use as allotments because of the history of how allotments were created in the Enclosure period - my site at Wash Common is one such example, and these sites couldn't be sold on the open market in any case.

Selling the sites in trust as allotments is already possible without new legislation, and some councils have indeed sold their sites to allotment associations at a nominal cost. However, what's also possible under current legislation is leasing the sites in trust as allotments, and that creates a small income for the council who also retain some residual control over the site which is less easily enforced if they sell the freehold.

As far as the council goes there's very little practical difference between leasing the site and fully devolving the management and maintenance, but it makes a significant difference to the site association. An unincorporated association can't directly own a lease because it isn't a body corporate so a trust needs to be created, and this is not without its challenges, so an association that owns its own site (either leasehold or freehold, it makes no difference actually) will mostly want to incorporate as a private limited company of some sort. This is a simpler arrangement than a trust, but it still involves some administration that can be too much for a small association. However, under devolved management the council can still pass all cost and responsibility to the site association, while technically retaining ownership of the site and relieving the site association of some considerable inconvenience. There are plenty of incorporated allotment association that own their own sites, and many have never had any council involvement in their several hundred years of existence, but it's just not the easiest way of achieving self-management and saving the tax-payer the cost of providing the service.

[user23]

Absolutely nothing wrong with breaking even. No legislative changes needed, just some common sense. Let those who actually know about services deliver them.

I don't buy the argument that because someone is great at growing a few parsnips they're also an expert bean counter.

It's the one being used to justify GPs managing their own budgets, but in truth GPs are experts in medicine not finance and some have handed the function over to private companies performing the same task as the NHS did. Perhaps this was always the intention, and I've seen some claim it's another step in the increasing privatisation of the NHS.

If this were true then you'd have bin-men deciding where and when each individual lorry went and what they picked up, because they deliver the service, so must be the right people to manage it.

Yes, I read what you said. You proposed a solution to the proposition that money is the primary concern, but your solution just wasn't very good. If you want to sell allotment sites on the open market with no strings attached then that would require primary legislation and in effect it would destroy the allotment movement. I can't see any government wanting to do that because of the social and environmental benefit that allotments bring.

You're saying handing publicly managed services over to the private sector isn't always the best way?

You'll upset On The Edge, with talk like that.

[Andy Capp]

You're saying handing publicly managed services over to the private sector isn't always the best way?

You know what this sort of language leads to accusations of don't you! Especially when you actually suggested selling assets, not just handing over services.

[user23]

You know what this sort of language leads to accusations of don't you!

I suggested privatising it, he suggested that getting the private sector to run the service wasn't a very good solution.

[On the edge]

I don't buy the argument that because someone is great at growing a few parsnips they're also an expert bean counter.

It's the one being used to justify GPs managing their own budgets, but in truth GPs are experts in medicine not finance and some have handed the function over to private companies performing the same task as the NHS did. Perhaps this was always the intention, and I've seen some claim it's another step in the increasing privatisation of the NHS.

If this were true then you'd have bin-men deciding where and when each individual lorry went and what they picked up, because they deliver the service, so must be the right people to manage it.You're saying handing publicly managed services over to the private sector isn't always the best way?

You'll upset On The Edge, with talk like that.

You won't, I promise. However, being a real liberal I believe in thin government. There are many more ways to deliver public services than simply setting up private companies. Ironically, that's probably the second worst option! I've always thought it rather sad that our public administrators can only thing in binary terms - public or private.

[Andy Capp]

I suggested privatising it, he suggested that getting the private sector to run the service wasn't a very good solution.

That's better and represents more accurately what he said than your last post.

[Andy Capp]

I've always thought it rather sad that our public administrators can only thing in binary terms - public or private.

user23 will always try to polarise opinion rather than accept that what Simon advocates (management by the 'volunteer sector').

[Simon Kirby]

I don't buy the argument that because someone is great at growing a few parsnips they're also an expert bean counter.

Perfectly fair point, and there are self-managed sites that have gone terribly wrong. Of course there are also state-managed sites that have also gone terribly wrong, but your point is still a fair one. However, there is an enormous body of evidence to show that allotmenteers can in fact manage their own affairs adequately - at a rough guess I'd say half the allotment sites in England are self-managed. It really shouldn't be any surprise that volunteers are capable of managing their own associations when you think of all the kinds of sports and social clubs that do just that, and even the Newbury Bowls Club that rents its pitches from the Town Council is self-managed.

You're saying handing publicly managed services over to the private sector isn't always the best way?

I'm not saying anything as general or dogmatic as that, but on the specific issue of allotments the evidence suggests that in general allotmenteers do a better job at running their own sites, and collaterally that also delivers a saving to the tax-payer and cheaper rents.

If it wasn't for the difficulty of allotmenteers getting access to growing spaces there would never have been a need for the Allotments Acts, and if it wasn't for the patrician thinking of the Edwardians and Victorians who cast the acts at the end of the Enclosure period parish councils would never have been involved and no one would ever have thought that they should be - this whole discussion would have been as inane as talking about whether the parish council should devolve the running of the bridge club, or the knitting circle, or the fishing club.

To my mind the best solution would be to give voluntary allotment associations exactly the same powers as parish councils - except for the power to levy a precept! We wouldn't then have the utterly bonkers situation of party politicians who know and care nothing about allotment being elected to run the allotment association, who then exclude the allotmenteers from any involvement and make rules on pain of eviction that prevent the allotmenteers doing a stroke of site maintenance for themselves so that their empire of local government clerks employed at the public expense can have something to do to occupy their time. Truly Kafkaesque.