Your say / allotments
‘Allotments are rooted in the struggles of the working classes’
Following the publication of the council’s allotments consultation, we have taken the decision at Edible Bristol to publish our concerns.
As a city, food justice is very high on the agenda and over the last few years we have worked alongside Feeding Bristol and others to look at what that means for Bristol.
Food justice is when everyone has access to nutritious, affordable and culturally appropriate food, which is grown, produced, sold and consumed in ways that care for people and the environment.
is needed now More than ever
The origin of allotments is to ensure members of a community had land on which to grow their own fruit and vegetables, and is a tradition that goes back hundreds of years to support the poor, for whom it would be their main source of food.
In the years between the world wars, allotments again rose in popularity, as places to support people to be able to access fruit and veg, as well as to support the mental health of soldiers returning to war.
While no one had coined the term PTSD, soldiers returning from the horrors of the trenches were given plots as it could be seen to be supporting their trauma.
It’s important to understand this background, as we look at increases in allotment fees, especially large increases as are suggested.
Allotments may have, in places, become the playgrounds of the middle classes, but their history is rooted in the struggles of the working classes.
While we understand that increases in rents are needed and haven’t been consulted on since 2018, the sudden suggested increase of mostly 100 per cent is likely to mean some allotment holders feel they are unable to continue working plots they have worked for some time, if not years.
During a time of huge inflation, where mostly everyone is feeling the effects, we believe this is directly in contradiction to supporting food justice.
We would therefore call for a staggered approach to these increases, and, most importantly, for allotment holders to be able to pay a direct debit monthly for their plot.
We are concerned that without this, allotment holders who are not in receipt of universal credit but for whom times are extremely challenging, are being discriminated against, and that it will lead to people relying on cheap supermarket food rather than freshly grown food from their allotments.
Lynmouth Road allotments in St Werburgh’s are among the 112 allotments across Bristol – photo: Harry Mac
Our second concern is around possible plans for removing mature trees, and a blanket decision being made the is in direct opposition to Bristol City Council’s biodiversity strategy worked on following the city declaration of a biodiversity emergency.
Trees are important places for biodiversity, with some species, oaks for example, being home to up to 2,500 species, in their own ecosystem.
Losing trees of species important for biodiversity because of a belief that they are somehow in the way of food growing, pits food growing against biodiversity regeneration.
These are two things that ought to be working together, and that as a city, we should be asking anyone growing food on council land to support areas for nature within plots.
We should also be encouraging the growing of nuts in allotments and community gardens as these crops are an important way of growing protein in the confines of a city.
Equally, we would like to call for a rethink of charging allotment holders to get permission for ponds, sheds and other suggested asks.
Encouraging allotment holders to dig ponds is another important way of ensuring allotment sites have healthy ecosystems that ensure good pollination of crops, and charging for permission again means those struggling the most lose out and are financially discriminated against.
White City Allotments are managed by Hotwells & District Allotments Association- photo: Martin Booth
Finally, some points around community growing spaces on allotment sites.
To charge from £150 to £400 for a group to set up on a site is again discriminating against small groups or organisations of local people trying to set up food growing projects from the grassroots, and whose aims are to support local people with local food.
Again, this is directly in contradiction to food justice.
But most importantly it is failing to acknowledge the evolution of allotments. In a city where for so many owning a home, let alone a garden, is an unthinkable goal, groups of house sharers, flat dwellers and friends working allotments together, learning about the soil, the seasons, food production and coming together to learn together is a new and expanding form of allotment stewardship.
If allotment holders are only to be allowed one co-worker, and groups are being charged £150 to set up a site, these generally younger people who are making great use of the land, are being discriminated against in a world where they are already unable to access things which older generations have taken for granted.
These people are the future of allotments and we should be empowering them to grow the allotment movement for their and following generations, rather than making them feel unwelcome.
This is an opinion piece by Sara Venn, a growing activist and the founder of Edible Bristol, a charity that grows food in unloved sites around the city
Main photo: Edible Bristol
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