This week saw October’s full Council meeting and the conclusion of an investigation, which I led, into the state of the Allotments Service across Birmingham. Demand for allotments has been growing rapidly in recent years. The number of tenants has grown by over a thousand during the past 4 years and we are reaching the limits of the number of plots available in many parts of the City. It was the experience of seeing the tremendous growth of demand for plots in the Mayfield Road site in Tyseley that helped spur my interest in the subject and while there are still some spare spaces in Acocks Green, we may soon join neighbouring Hall Green in having a shortage of plots before long if trends continue.

Allotments bring many benefits – they increase the supply of healthy, fresh food; they stimulate exercise, they can help to bring the community together and they have a range of environmental benefits, in part from their value as green space in a city but also by reducing food miles and packaging. So our report made it clear that we must look to resond to the increase in demand by finding ways to increase the supply of plots in areas where there are waiting lists.

In part this must be a long term process – gaining new allotment plots when there are major redevelopment schemes for example. But its also about using existing land better and also shrinking the size of plots as many of the newer tenants do not have the time to tend the size of plot that was typical in the past.

It also became clear that we have to find ways to reduce the level of subsidy the Council provides to the service. This is currently £315k a year, or around £50 per tenant. Rents were kept very low in recent years in an effort to stimulate demand for empty plots and now these are far fewer, we came to the conclusion that plot rents should rise to the typical level of other big cities. Currently a standard plot costs £28 a year (with a 50% discount for over 60s). This remains the same for the 2011 season but from 1st October 2011 renewal charges will rise to £40 (with the discount retained). The Council has stated its intention for further significant rises thereafter (to £75 for a standard plot by 2014) which go beyond the current levels in other cities – but then I would expect most other local authorities to make significant increases in charges over the next few years, so they may well be in line with other cities when they are enacted.

We also recommended that allotment societies be encouraged to take more responsibilty for their own day to day management and maintenance. This will reduce the cost to the City of running the service. Together with rent increases this should reduce the subsidy to a radically lower level. This is only fair. While the social benefits of allotments mean its right to subsidise their creation and  protect them against developers; the fact that their produce is for private benefit means that those who use them should cover their annual running costs as far as possible.

Many of the recommendations of the report were technical in nature but the overall aim is clear – to create a growing and largely self sufficient allotment service that will meet the needs of generations to come.