Chapter 6: Site and plot characteristics
10: Site characteristics,management and facilities
11.2. CITY FARMS AND COMMUNITY GARDENS
11.2.1.The dataset provides new collated evidence for city farms and community gardens.
These matters will be addressed in particular by the Federation to examine its opportunities for making further success.
11.2.2.However, there is evidence from the practice, management, community
engagement that are significant on such sites that there is much that may be transferable to allotment policy and management.
12.Recommendations
12.1.The level and unevenness in response suggest strongly that a procedure for regular keeping of data by local councils be required. It is also valuable to extend this
requirement to the local council documentation of evidence on private sites.
12.2. All data on allots required with the annual returns of open spaces. Allotments are public open spaces, albeit with a distinctive relative individual user temporality. Given their broader value and complexity, allotments may need to be collected in more depth….
12.3.Key aspects of data are considered in terms of the stratification of council response.
In, for example, the evidence on policy development by local councils, there is a
significant difference in policy development between district and metropolitan councils.
Moreover, the response rate in particular sections of the questionnaires, on policy and on sites, whilst uneven in all categories, is significantly different between these categories of councils.
12.4.Many sites are owned, and managed, by town and parish councils. Others are owned and managed by their respective district councils. It may be that considerable numbers, perhaps thousands of sites, are in the former category. The 1996 survey was supported by a regional network of informants, at great length and time. This was not undertaken for the present survey. An full audit is advised on these potential sites, at least in a selective way to assess their present situation, condition, use, and trends.
12.5.An analysis of the dynamics and modus op of devolved management and its relative efficiency and effectiveness vis a vis non-devolved management.
In view of the importance of allotment sites and the facilities they offer, it is important to investigate more closely the connections and dynamics of allotment sites in England.
12.6.An examination of correlation between rents and faciltiies, management types is needed to evaluate performance and opportunity.
12.7.A selective review of policy and services would reveal correlations between performance and efficiency, with potential for improvement.
12.8.As there is evidence that suggests an increasing mismatch between global figures of waiting lists and vacant plots, and that the evidence collected does not permit exact comparison in individual councils or sites, a focused, selective, local analysis is
recommended to secure an informed picture of the local dynamics of allotments council performance, supply and demand.
12.9.Ingeneral,this survey did not provide for an assessment of connections between evidence in many important cases. For example, the consequences of building policy for allotments and the effects of those policies, allotment promotion and types thereof and their deliver of demand, of reducing site vacancy; management arrangements and the delivery of greater site effectiveness, efficiency of use, delivery to those with disability. It is therefore recommended that carefully sampled investigations are required to achieve these policy goals.
12.10.In view of the importance of popular knowledge concerning the availability of existing allotments, further work is needed to evaluate the performance of promotion.
12.11.Asrents vary enormously regionally, by status and by category of location [eg city, village], the reasons need to be analysed, and appropriate resposes to achieve efficiency and availability addressed. This may include attention to the development of more smaller sites..
12.12.Allotments are frequently an aspect of local government that is not highly positioned within the organisation and thus often lacking in investment of more
appropriate staff and appropriate time. This is likely to be the explanation of the variation in response to particular questions, as well as to the questionnaires a whole. It is therefore recommend that action be taken to position the work that local councils do appropriately according to their recognition as significant components of joined-up government policy delivery.
12.13.Dissemination of this report, opportunity to engage local councils in particular in the building of effectiveness and efficiency, and relevance to a range of policy issues that allotments have
Sources used in Report
CFCG website: www.ncvo-vol.org.uk/askncvo/index.asp?id=374&fID=71
Crouch D. and Ward C. [2003] The Allotment: its landscape and culture Five Leaves [first ed. Faber and Faber 1988]
House of Commons [1998] Report of Enquiry into the Future of Allotments Cmnd:
LGA [Local Government Association] [2001] Growing in Community: Best Practice LGA-DETR-GLA-Shell Better Britain Campaign 2001
DETR/Anglia [Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions] [1997] Survey of Allotments in England.
PPG17PolicyandPlanningGuidanceNote.Thisdocument
identifiestherequirementforalllocalcouncilstoproducean AuditofOpenSpacesintirjurisdiction.