Radical plan to tackle allotment shortage

Unused land should be snatched from wealthy private owners to tackle the allotments shortage in Rochdale, the Government has been told.

Plots should be transferred from the country’s biggest landowners to frustrated gardeners who must otherwise wait years for a public plot because of a growing shortage, a radical report says.

Nationally, 100,000 people are waiting for a plot.

The New Local Government Network (NLGN) has urged the Government to offer tax incentives to big landowners to persuade them to give up parts of their estates for allotments.

However, its report, entitled Can You Dig It?, argues ministers should — if the landowners refuse to budge — allow local councils to take land for 10-year periods for local gardeners to use.

The report concludes: “It is unfair that, while some individuals own hundreds of thousands of acres, others are unable to rent a small allotment plot.

“Much of the individual holdings, as well as those held by the Church of England and the Crown Estate, are likely to have areas that may be suitable for allotments.”

Calling for a large private estates commission to map private land, the report adds: “Local authorities would then be able to assess the suitability of this mapped land for, among other things, allotment and community garden sites.”

The Royal Family owns 677,000 acres of land nationally and although some of it is already used for farming, NLGN believes more could be used for the benefit of the community.

In urban areas — where the demand for allotments is highest — more than 3,500 hectares of brownfield land are currently unused and could also be transformed, the group says.

Across the UK, the top 1% of landholders own 70% of land. Meanwhile, the number of allotments has plunged from 1.4 million in the 1940s to 200,000 now.