Page 45 - ALG Issue 4 2021

North West
Lancashire, Greater Manchester, Merseyside and Cheshire
Welcome to our new members...
Brunswick Community Allotments and Gardens Haddock Wood Allotment and Gardeners Group Land Lane Allotment Association
Ordsall Community Allotment Society
Woodley Allotments Association Cheshire West and Chester Council
7 Individuals
REPRESENTATIVE
Mr John Irwin
16 Parkdale Ave, Audenshaw, Manchester M34 5LW
0161 3207779 jirwin.nas@gmail.com
MENTOR
Vacant
Contact diane@nsalg.org.uk
if interested in volunteering with the Region
Artistic Collaboration in Salford
In a previous publication, I wrote
a note on the remediation of contamination of land, and was very pleased to receive contact from an allotment holder who is also an artist. The upshot is that the matter has now developed into a collaboration between the SAF (Salford Allotment Federation), Salford City Council, Lynn and Val from the artists group Tea, and the Salford and Brunel universities.
There are so many places in British towns and cities that have been used for so many purposes, that it is very difficult to find a new allotment site which is not ‘contaminated’ in some manner. How to remediate the land is becoming of more interest due to the pandemic highlighting the demand for allotments, and the clear social and health benefits derived from working the land, whether singly or as a group endeavour.
It is becoming more important
to provide land for allotments
so that anyone can take ‘pride
in ownership’ that comes from planting seeds and harvesting their investment. Plants play a vital role in all our lives and their ability to cleanse what we have tarnished is becoming more apparent, hence the need for us to keep on investing and investigating.
Geoff Hamilton, Salford Federation
Lynn Pilling Tea Artist Group http://www.teaweb.org/
I found it very rewarding that we had a reply from a reader of the magazine who got in touch with us regarding an earlier article. As you can see by the article above, this could lead into a very interesting project.
Don Booth, Chair Salford Federation
Revidge Allotment Association, Blackburn – more good news!
A surprising and positive benefit of the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdowns has been that they have helped to give us more time to look around the site, consider and work on priorities. Back in 2017 we put an ambitious three-year Development
& Maintenance plan together, which included replacing the old builder’s portaloo with a new compostable loo, developing a website, creating two new parking spaces, sorting out the water supply, creating four new starter plots (more
about these in a later edition of the magazine) and developing a mentoring scheme and handbook for new members. Community Payback has given us a tremendous amount of help with the physical jobs for which we are extremely grateful.
The thing that has taken more time, and money, than we originally anticipated is the replacement of the two existing timber sheds which provide storage for garden machinery and equipment and act as a shop and meeting space for plotholders.
The sheds were originally sited on local authority playing fields and used as changing rooms. They were acquired by us in the 1970s.
In their day both sheds were in very good condition, but they are now in disrepair and reaching the end of their useful lives. Over the years we have carried out a number of repairs, but finally realised we were fighting a losing battle. In 2019 we met with
the local Planning department who advised us how we should go about making a planning application to demolish the existing sheds and replace them with one new metal agricultural style building. We’ve now got quotes to do the job and have set about fundraising. We estimate we need about £40k in total and have set aside £10k from our reserves. Recently we applied to the National Lottery for
a grant of £10k and we are thrilled to announce that our bid was successful. We hope to complete fundraising in 2022 and finish the new building in spring/summer 2023.
We are grateful to the Lottery who have given us the encouragement and impetus we needed to get on with the job. The new building will help us enhance services to our plotholders as well as making the site more attractive.
Thank you National Lottery!
Kath Knowles, Secretary
Revidge Allotment Association www.revidgeallotments.wordpress.com
Allotment and Leisure Gardener 45