Page 42 - ALG Issue 4 2021

Yorkshire
Yorkshire and parts of Humberside
Good news for
Bedale’s allotment
gardeners
Members of Bedale Allotment Society had good news this year when the final stages of a deal struck with the Leeds Diocese, in spring 2015, finally reached completion. The Society is now the owner of its allotment land, and its members can look forward to working the site without the threat of development pressures. Tithe maps reveal that the site has been used as allotment gardens for at least 180 years, and it is thrilling to know it will be available to the local community for years to come. We can now be upbeat, have ambition and plan for the future; how different to previous years of despondency when we faced challenge after challenge to our tenancy.
In 1836 the land was gifted to the
local church and subsequently used
as allotments. The many fragments
of clay pipes that we find, fashionable during the 1800s and early 1900s, bear testimony to the many generations of Bedale people who worked the same soil we work today. Sadly, we’re all too aware of the pressures on allotment land from housing shortages, rising land prices and the grab for every ‘available’ piece of potential building land within our communities. So, it was in Bedale.
Trouble started brewing in the 1990s and reached a peak in 2011 when, subject to an alternative site being
found, the allotments were designated for housing in Hambleton District Council’s Development Plan. Our landlord, the now Anglican Diocese of Leeds, did put considerable effort into relocating us but it proved impossible to find a suitable alternative site.
Beginning in 2012 members, with the support of Bedale Town Council, the local community, and the local church, campaigned to stay at the present allotment site which is perfectly placed within the community! It’s a long
story but eventually, and thankfully, a compromise deal was struck with the Diocese who offered to fund a complete redevelopment of our site in exchange for part of it being surrendered for house building. In order to give the allotments a long-term secure future, the agreement also gifted ownership
of the retained land to the Society for as long as it is required for allotment gardening. We accepted the offer!
John Burton (Chairman of Bedale Allotments Society), Bruce Stainsby (Secretary), and Rev Simon Moor
(St Gregory’s Church, Bedale
Opening ceremony July 2016
New site being worked Feb 2016
42 Allotment and Leisure Gardener