Page 60 - ALG Issue 3 2022

London
London
REPRESENTATIVE
Terry Dickinson
07789 485331 tdickinson.nas@gmail.com
MENTOR
Grant Smith
London
0845 478 6351 grantsmith.nas@gmail.com
Calls to 0845 numbers cost 3p (ex VAT) per minute plus your telephone company’s access charge
The Urban Allotments
London probably is not the first place you think of when talking about allotments. However, London has a fantastic set of allotments splurged across the capital. In total we have 736 allotment sites, totalling about 950 hectares in area. This is over 3 times the area of the City of London!
Unsurprisingly, the areas with better allotment provision are the outer London boroughs. Sadly, there are no allotments at all within the boroughs of Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea or the City of London. Hackney (population 281,000) has just 9 sites totalling
only 1 hectare. At the other end of the spectrum, Barnet (population 385,000) has 47 sites totalling 99 hectares.
Our sites vary considerably in size but tend to be rather small. Half the sites are 0.8 hectares or less. Our largest site is Addiscombe, Woodside & Shirley Leisure Gardens in Croydon at 10.2 hectares, whereas Springdale Road
in Hackney (a WW2 bombsite) is just 250 square metres (10 rods). More interesting locations for allotments include Mudchute on the Isle of Dogs, perched on top of the soil dug out to create Millwall Docks and just down the road from the Canary Wharf financial district, and Royal Paddocks which
is within the walls of Hampton Court Palace. One site has told us that they get their manure from the stables at Buckingham Palace, which is showing off a bit.
Demand for allotments in London is very high. Most (all?) boroughs and sites have extensive waiting lists, and many are not accepting new applicants. Richmond upon Thames, with 2,000 plots, has over 7,000 names on its waiting list, although some people are waiting on more than one site. Islington is not expecting to open its waiting list for many years.
There are rare opportunities to make more allotments available to people.
For example, Terry, our Regional Representative, is based at a site in Chadwell Heath on Fairlop Plain which leases a small part of the area actually designated as statutory allotment. The rest went out of use in the 1960s and 70s. Terry has been lobbying Redbridge council for over 2 years to allow his society to extend its lease and reopen more of the site. Re-instatement of the allotments is now an agreed part of a plan to enhance Fairlop Plain, potentially adding another 5 hectares of allotments and making the site the 5th largest in London.
We hold 4 regional meetings a year, often at Roots and Shoots in central London
NAS London Region itself is now
about 5 years old. We cover the whole area governed by the Greater London Authority, roughly the area within the M25. We have an active and enthusiastic committee, drawn from across the capital. The committee meets regularly, with the café at the Royal Festival Hall being a favourite location, and there is a constant stream of calls and messages in between.
Being based in a single city has its advantages as a region. We can visit just about every site using public transport and have a healthy series of site and society visits as a result. Please get in
60 Allotment and Leisure Gardener
Welcome to our new members...
3 Individuals