There are few things so quintessentially English as the allotment, but the number of people waiting for a space of their own has almost doubled in the last 12 years.
The most recent figures, obtained by independent artists and supported by Greenpeace through freedom of information requests, show there are now at least 157,820 applications sitting on English local authorities’ allotment waiting lists, up 81% from 12 years ago when researchers found the figure was 86,787.
Campaigners say this rise is due to a combination of high demand and delay in turning over plots that are not being properly used.
In preparation for the launch of a new piece of activist art, researchers found that across Britain, 174,183 applications were sitting on local authority allotment waiting lists. The average waiting time for an allotment was three years, while residents of Islington, north London, faced a 15-year wait.
The local authority with the longest waiting list was Bristol, with 7,630 outstanding applications, followed by Sunderland, Portsmouth, Southampton, Edinburgh and Manchester.
Greenpeace said the numbers of applicants demonstrated a desire among people to find new ways to tackle the intensifying cost of living, climate, nature and health crises.
The tradition of allotment holding in Britain harks back to Anglo-Saxon times when swathes of land were commonly held for growing food, grazing livestock and collecting firewood, before the enclosure acts, over four centuries, where aristocrats fenced off public land for their own use.
The modern system of allotments – named for small patches of land attached to tenant farmers cottages – emerged in the 19th century, and at the beginning of the 20th century the Allotment Act imposed a legal responsibility on local authorities to meet residents’ demand for allotments.
A spokesperson for the National Allotment Society (NAS) said the steady increase in demand for allotments had been down to the cost of living crisis, the increased interest in “growing your own” during Covid, and better awareness of sustainable growing and healthy eating.
The NAS campaigns to encourage housebuilders to incorporate allotments in new developments and also works with local authorities to ensure existing sites are properly managed. “Often usable plots stand vacant for periods of time,” the NAS said. “Vacancies due to issues with eviction, overgrown plots or lack of access are frustrating for those waiting years to get their hands on a plot.”
Daniela Montalto, a Greenpeace UK forests campaigner, said: “Allotment waiting lists demonstrate a huge desire from people to be part of the solution to our broken food system but without access to land, the many benefits of community food growing to people, nature and the climate are being stifled.
“The government must support councils to act as well as take seriously its own role in creating systemic and lasting change to the food system. Crucial steps include proper support for farmers to transition to climate-, people- and nature-friendly farming as well as measures to reduce our climate footprint abroad including a ban on imports of soya and other agricultural commodities that drive deforestation in places like Brazil.”
Collaborating with artists JC Niala, Julia Utreras and Sam Skinner, Greenpeace used the data to inform a 30 metre-long work of living art embedded with clusters of seeds and ash from burned portions of the Amazon rainforest. The artwork, which was displayed at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, on Wednesday morning spelled out the message “We the 174,183 demand allotments”.
Niala, the lead artist behind the project, said: “With the acceleration of climate change and the persistence of structural inequality within the UK and globally, food has become both an emblem and an embodiment of the troubles around us.
“Allotments quite literally provide a lifeline for some. They bring good local food back to people and take away the bad taste of the global industrial food system. They improve people’s mental health and wellbeing by creating a sense of purpose and increasing opportunities to connect with others as well as spend time in nature.”
