An allotment is a small plot of land rented — usually from the council, for a modest annual sum — on which you may grow fruit and vegetables. There are around 330,000 of them in Britain, and demand vastly exceeds supply.
The legal right
Allotments are unusual in being protected by statute. The Smallholdings and Allotments Act 1908 placed a duty on local authorities to provide plots where there is demand, and a later provision gives six registered electors in a parish the right to request them formally, obliging the council to consider it.
Councils also cannot simply sell allotment land — disposal requires the consent of the Secretary of State, and sites can be designated as “statutory” allotments with strong protection. This is why allotments have survived in city centres where any other open land would have been built on decades ago.
Where they came from
The Enclosure Acts of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries removed common land on which the rural poor had grazed animals and grown food, and allotments were the compensating provision — small plots granted so labouring families could feed themselves.
They expanded enormously in wartime. The “Dig for Victory” campaign from 1939 turned parks, verges, tennis courts and the moat at the Tower of London into vegetable ground, and allotment numbers peaked at around 1.4 million plots. Britain was importing most of its food and needed to stop.
The plot
A standard full plot is ten rods — an archaic measure, about 250 square metres, said to derive from the area a man could dig in a day. Many councils now split them into halves or quarters, because a full plot is a genuinely serious commitment of perhaps eight hours a week in summer.
The standard furniture of an allotment: a shed, a water butt, a compost heap, runner beans up canes, a fruit cage, rhubarb, potatoes, and a greenhouse made from salvaged windows.
The rules
Tenancy agreements are specific and enforced by site committees:
- No living on the plot, and no permanent dwellings.
- Limits on shed size and on structures.
- The plot must be cultivated. Neglect brings a warning letter and eventually eviction, since the waiting list is long.
- Restrictions on trees, bonfires, hosepipes and — usually — livestock, though some sites permit chickens or bees.
The waiting lists
The defining fact of modern allotmenteering. National demand runs to well over 150,000 people, and waits of five years are common. Some London boroughs have lists measured in decades and have closed them entirely.
Demand rose sharply during the pandemic and has not fallen back. Meanwhile the number of plots has declined by around 65% since the wartime peak.
The culture
Allotment sites have their own social order — a committee, an annual show, a shop selling seed and compost at cost, and a strong tradition of giving away surplus. Nobody who grows courgettes can eat all their courgettes, and August on an allotment site is largely an exchange of vegetables nobody wants.
They are also unusually mixed places. A site will contain retired men who have held the same plot for forty years, young families, and recent immigrants growing crops the site has never seen before, all sharing a water tap and firm opinions about slugs.