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Revidge Allotment Association, Blackburn – some good news!
Salford Allotment Federation Mission Statement
The pandemic will pass but it has taught us several things which we need to address now and for the future.
Our enforced isolation has caused many problems and some of these can be helped by ensuring that communities work together, since togetherness and labouring are vital for mental wellbeing.
One simple way to give meaning and purpose to people’s lives is to give them responsibility. Freedom of action and activity stimulate bodily functions and nurtures general wellbeing.
Working on the land is a potent stimulus and over the pandemic we have seen so many instances of the joy and satisfaction that growing anything produces. Land and space to grow is not available to everyone, but the health benefits – physical and mental – are so great that provision of areas to plant and grow anything is really vital, not only during the pandemic but as a long-term strategy which has been missed in the past.
A programme of growing space provision is what is needed, on a nationwide basis. The filling of every spare parcel of land with development is
a regressive policy and many sites, particularly in flood plains, should be precluded from development.
Allotments are viewed as a legitimate target for development but these sites provide relief from the urban sprawl, are havens for wildlife, and supply health and wellbeing benefits to society way beyond their monetary cost.
Development policy needs to be modified
to ensure that allotment land is reserved in
all planning applications, irrespective of the developers claims that development is not viable without maximum density being possible. In addition, the Government should require all local authorities, including government departments, to include growing space in their proposals
for land disposals, and to offer these sites to
the local allotment society and the National Allotment Society on a long-term (50 years) basis.
Geoff Hamilton
2020 was a very challenging year for everyone and we fully expected our allotment site to be negatively affected; however, thanks to the Government allowing us to keep our site open and a warm and sunny spring, we have had a very successful year, managing to get some long-standing projects completed and bumper shop sales.
With the help of a generous grant
from the National Allotment Society and labour provided by Community Payback, we bought and installed a new compostable toilet. Due to Covid-19 restrictions the toilet cannot be commissioned as yet but it is ready and waiting as soon as the rules allow.
We have also provided two additional parking spaces by excavating an area on the site which contained some very challenging bedrock, hence the reason it had been left fallow! The Community Payback team were heroic in preparing the site and we applaud their effort.
We have also had a bumper year for shop sales, despite having to close the shop in accordance with government guidelines. We closed the shop in March but have been able to allow members
to buy composts, fertilisers etc by them accessing the shop in line with Covid guidance, noting their purchases and paying by bank transfer. The system is based largely on trust and has worked very successfully resulting in a 180% increase in sales compared to 2019! Community Payback continue to help us develop four new starter plots which hopefully will be available for letting in the New Year. More news on the starter plots later in the season.
Committee meetings have been held via ZOOM, which overall has worked well and enabled progress to be made and keep members involved in decision- making. ZOOM has not always worked smoothly but with humour and patience the show has been kept on the road, or perhaps more appropriately, the plants in their beds.
The website that we set up some years ago has also helped us keep members informed. Technology to the rescue!
Kath Knowles, Secretary to Revidge Allotment Association www.revidgeallotments.wordpress. com
Allotment and Leisure Gardener 49