Islington Tribune - News: Is there a lot of demand for new garden patches?

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Islington Tribune - by TOM FOOT
Published: 7 March 2008

Jeremy Corbyn

Is there a lot of demand for new garden patches?

JEREMY Corbyn is fighting to reinstate a 100-year-old law that would bring more allotments to Islington.
The MP for Islington North is part of a cross-party coalition calling for a “legal duty” to be imposed on developers in major planning applications.
It would give special powers to councils if they could prove demand for allotments.
Islington, with just four allotments out of London’s 737, has a 10-year waiting list and has stopped taking new applications.
Under the Allotments Act 1925, any major town planning scheme has to include plans for new patches, to be paid for by developers, if demand can be proved.
But the Act was repealed and the clause lost.
“The new Bill seeks to redress the balance,” said Tory MP Tony Baldry, proposing the bill in the Commons last week.
“The profile of those launching allotments is changing. Women and young families are increasingly active on the issue, and members of ethnic minorities are often keen to grow their own vegetables.”
Geoff Stokes, secretary of the National Society of Allotment and Leisure Gardeners, said: “In general, few new sites have been set up and those that have are mainly by parish councils.”
The London Assembly last year published figures showing 4,300 people were on allotment waiting lists in London.
The Bill reaches the second reading stage in Parliament on March 14.

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