Post by Admin on Aug 9, 2015 10:04:17 GMT
The Luxembourg-based Office International du Coin de Terre et des Jardins Familiaux, representing three million European allotment gardeners since 1926, describes the socio-cultural and economic functions of allotment gardens as offering an improved quality of life, an enjoyable and profitable hobby, relaxation, and contact with nature. For children, gardens offer places to play and to learn about nature, while for the unemployed, they offer a feeling of doing something useful as well as low-cost food. For the elderly and disabled, gardens offer an opportunity to meet people, to share in activity with like-minded people, and to experience activities like planting and harvesting.
In England the Allotments Act of 1922 and subsequent legislation requires a local authority to maintain an "adequate provision" of land, usually a large allotment field which can then be subdivided into allotment gardens for individual residents at a low rent. Allotment sizes are often quoted in square rods, and rents are set "at a reasonable level".
The ever-increasing demand for housing, particularly in the prosperous south-east, means that developers are going for ever higher-density of buildings, with smaller gardens. Allotments are more than ever vital to the health, well-being and leisure of an increasingly urban community.
Their public profile is likely to become significantly higher: Jeremy Corbyn, one of the Labour party MPs in contention for the leadership is a committed allotmenteer. He has his own allotment in Finchley, North London. At the moment, he is growing potatoes, beans, soft fruit and apples: “I try to grow things that don’t require a lot of watering because I don’t get up there regularly enough. [But] I always make time for my allotment. You like a dry summer because the weeds don’t grow. You water what you need to water and the weeds can sod off.”
In England the Allotments Act of 1922 and subsequent legislation requires a local authority to maintain an "adequate provision" of land, usually a large allotment field which can then be subdivided into allotment gardens for individual residents at a low rent. Allotment sizes are often quoted in square rods, and rents are set "at a reasonable level".
The ever-increasing demand for housing, particularly in the prosperous south-east, means that developers are going for ever higher-density of buildings, with smaller gardens. Allotments are more than ever vital to the health, well-being and leisure of an increasingly urban community.
Their public profile is likely to become significantly higher: Jeremy Corbyn, one of the Labour party MPs in contention for the leadership is a committed allotmenteer. He has his own allotment in Finchley, North London. At the moment, he is growing potatoes, beans, soft fruit and apples: “I try to grow things that don’t require a lot of watering because I don’t get up there regularly enough. [But] I always make time for my allotment. You like a dry summer because the weeds don’t grow. You water what you need to water and the weeds can sod off.”