Hansard

I will start with a quick presentation to give the committee a flavour of an allotment site in Glasgow. The Kelvinside allotments are on two sites: Julian Avenue and Kirklee Road. The sites are approximately two acres each. Most of the plots are 30ft by 60ft, although some plots are half plots. We grow all the traditional varieties of vegetable that are available in Scotland. We also grow soft fruit: there is a great mixture of raspberries, strawberries and blackcurrants. Herbs are increasingly popular. Most plots have flowers and flower borders, with native and exotic species. We grow a rich variety of plants. Facilities are important. On Julian Avenue, we have water, a Portakabin with toilets and nicely laid out tarmac paths. There is a good periphery fence. The Kirklee Road site has water and gravel paths, and we acquired a composting toilet at Christmas. Both sites have good access.I will now outline the breakdown of people in the Kelvinside Allotments Association and make a comparison with the New Victoria gardens, which is near the Tramway theatre—I thought that it would be interesting to see the differences and similarity between the two. In Kelvinside, we have 102 plots. Two people are now allowed to sign up for a plot and the number of plots with two people is increasing. Of plot holders, 49 per cent are women—the figure is 51 per cent at New Victoria gardens. Of our plots, 15 per cent are worked by gardeners of ethnic origin. About 20 per cent of plots at both sites are visited regularly by people's children and grandchildren. That gives you a flavour of the community that we have at the Kelvinside allotments and at New Victoria gardens. The age profile of the plot holders peaks between 30 and 60. There is a small number of plot holders under 30, but that number is growing. There are a number of plot holders over 60. The high percentage of plot holders living within one mile of the plots surprised me—our examination of the postcodes of plot holders showed that figure to be 85 per cent. Some live a little further out. Our contact with the City of Glasgow Council has changed slightly since responsibility for the running of parks went from the parks department to land services. We currently pay £6.50 per plot. In the new budget, which I think was approved on Thursday, that has gone up to £26, which is a 300 per cent increase. The parks department had a part-time allotment officer and it provided the framework and regulations. It provided four skips a year and some help with maintenance—including of the periphery fence, the trees and the gravel paths—and it organised the prizes. The department—now land services—is the final arbiter in any disputes. On Kelvinside allotments, we had recourse to that service only once, about 10 or 15 years ago. We are locally managed. That is a good thing, because we charge £8 per plot for the local association. We arrange the annual general meeting; we look after the constitution and rules; we manage the waiting list; we keep the cultivation good; we have site inspections; we organise manure; we do site maintenance; we liaise with the local community; we run competitions; and we keep up our network with other allotment communities in Glasgow. Other sites have more active liaison. Some have raffles, some have ceilidhs and some have seed schemes. The devolved management allows the sites to develop that sort of activity. As for the extent of interest, the number of people on our waiting list is almost the same as the number of plots. The turnover of plots is between 5 per cent and 10 per cent a year. The size of the waiting list means that people have to wait four years for a plot in Kelvinside. The allotments are not advertised—we dare not advertise them. People can find out about them only by telephoning land services, coming along to our open day or coming to the site and asking how to get in touch with me. There is no notice board.Glasgow City Council's 1998 local plan review said that a main reason for migration from the city was people's desire for a bigger house with a garden in a better environment. I will compare the situation in Glasgow with the situation in Cambridge. Glasgow has five times as many people as Cambridge, which is a nice city in which a lot of houses have gardens. Even so, Cambridge has 38 allotment sites and Glasgow has only 26; Cambridge has more than 100 acres of land devoted to allotments while Glasgow has only about 29 acres; Cambridge has 1,800 plots while Glasgow has only 700, according to the city budget; and Cambridge has one plot for every 67 people while Glasgow has one plot for about every 874 people.I will now give some Glasgow City Council statistics from 1996 on the council wards surrounding our allotment site. It is interesting to note that, in Wynford, 81 per cent of the households have no car and 92.3 per cent of people live in flats. In Hyndland, 96.4 per cent of people live in flats. The area with the lowest percentage of people who live in flats is Kelvindale, with 58.2 per cent. Within our area, an awful lot of people live in flatted accommodation and have no access to gardens or gardening. The council is concerned about that and says that it is important that people have access to green space, that accessing green space should require no special effort and that that space should be within walking distance. We agree with that.Why are we interested in gardens? People like to garden and to grow plants. Most people with allotments grow food and eat it. Allotments provide release from stress and opportunities for exercise. They allow people to meet other people, including people whom they would not meet in any other way. There is a mixture of people of differing ages from various walks of life and with differing concerns; all can meet and talk on an allotment site. That is important. People can pass on knowledge and skills to children and encourage their children's interest in nature. Those are the traditional interests in allotments, which are evident in Kelvinside. There are new interests associated with sites such as the marvellous one at Hamiltonhill in Possil Park. Such sites are used by community groups and educational projects are run in them. Hamiltonhill has a wildlife area and is becoming a central focus of the area. There is a need to review legislation. We lost a site in Kirklee south in 1990. The Scottish Office conducted an inquiry at the time. The site had been owned by Glasgow University, which had bought it for student accommodation but had sold it for housing development after deciding not to build accommodation there. Five years before the inquiry, the allotment leases were cancelled and people moved off the site. The site lay derelict all that time. Mr Bell, the Scottish Office inquiry reporter at the time, said that, although he recognised"the usefulness and recreational value of allotments"and accepted that there was"an unsatisfied demand",there was"no adopted policy on the minimum standard of allotment provision".He said that the site was no longer in allotment use—but that was because we had been chucked off. Finally, he said that the local plan did"no more than encourage the retention of allotments."Therefore, as Mr Bell saw it, we had no legal basis for our appeal to keep our site. We lost it.We suggest that there is a need for a national and a local policy to support allotments. Glasgow City Council has said that it wants a quality environment; we believe that allotments are part of a quality environment. The council's west area review asked how open spaces, such as allotments, could be protected, but it did not give any answers. In 1998, the council said that it would maintain allotments where there was an identified demand for them. However, the council is not, I think, actively promoting allotments, and we cannot identify demand because there is no advertising and no promotion of allotments.What would allotment holders like? In Kelvinside, we would like security of tenure. We feel under threat because we are a prime site for development. We have two acres of land in the west end. The Kirklee Road and Julian Avenue sites are owned by the universities and leased to the council. That again is prime land in the west end of Glasgow. Our lease has to be renewed every year, so we feel under threat. A lot of sites have similar worries about security of tenure.We would also like recognition. We feel that allotments are a wonderful resource and can make a positive contribution to the community and to urban renaissance. Despite that, we are often considered the poor relation in comparison with other activities.Less fortunate sites—and there are many in Glasgow city centre—desperately need help with major problems such as the security of site boundaries. In the short term they need fences, because hedges take a long time to grow. The sites also need paths. Many do not have a good water supply and many have no toilets. The community at large wants sufficient allotment sites to meet demand—and there definitely is an untapped demand.Most Glasgow sites are happy with devolved management. Plot holders like to organise themselves. Once a site is in good order, as the Kelvinside one is, the local group finds it easy and not expensive to run. We manage our affairs very well, but we have a good site. Things work well when sites do not have problems; the ones that have problems have them because of a lack of funding.