Railways and Allotments

It may be surprising to know that in 1950 British Rail owned 75,000 allotments covering some 4,000 acres but by 1967 this had reduced to 26,076 allotments covering 1,541 acres and reducing at the rate of some 3,000 per annum. However, British Rail was then still the largest single allotment operator.

Hanging baskets and containers of flowers on station platform to welcome all travellers were the norm in the late 19^th and early 20^th century. Gertrude Jekyll considered stationmasters to be “public benefactors” for providing gardens, and platforms edged with borders of flowers and shrubs, to “refresh the weary traveller”. 

The railway companies historically were significant landowners. They confined their own planting efforts to a few hedges and trees alongside their tracks, and low maintenance broom and gorse on embankments.  They did however establish many allotments on their land. The land adjacent to stations was often rented out to employees for gardens and allotments, and sometimes provided a house to their stationmasters. Any bloom and bedding were generally down to the stationmaster and flower-loving assistants, guards and porters.   

In 1896 a reader wrote in The Garden of the railways being “a refuge” for wildflowers being lost in the landscape due to agricultural expansion and the spread of towns and cities.  Today, both wildflowers and garden escapees can be seen growing along the railway, but the plant most often seen is Buddleia. 

For over 100 years the London Underground has even been blooming with planters and illustrations. Around the time of the First World War, the District railway created a gardening competition for its staff and, with many stations being above ground, flowers bloomed. in 1933 a wider competition started and continued during the Second World War. During the Second World War as every piece of land was utilised, railway banks were often used to provide space in the nation’s ‘Dig for Victory’. The competition still runs today with now broader categories including a community garden one which recognises partnerships between staff and customers.

Unfortunately, the romantic days of steam and stations in blossom with their allotments died many years ago. They impact of Richard Beeching's 1960s deep rail cuts originally proposed the closure of 2,363 stations and 5,000 miles of railway line. 55% of stations and 30% of route miles may have been dilutand it spelt the decline of rail. In parallel the then Transport Minister, Ernest Marple set out a road building programme to shift freight and passengers onto the roads which resulted in the decline of rail, coupled with a decline in in demand for allotments, resulted in a decline in Railway allotments.

Our railways are now in the hands of individual companies and they are responsible for most of our railway stations and their profitability, while Network Rail maintain the 20,000 miles of track, and the 10 million trees growing alongside.

Ask the rail commuter of today about railway horticulture and they will probably start a long conversation about ‘leaves on the track’ or high winds bringing down trees onto the track or snow bringing down trees and knocking out powerlines. Few will talk about the stations in bloom or the station allotment. The only colour to adorn many stations today often comes from an aerosol in the form often illegible and meaningless graffiti.

Have we lost this land and simply made the stations functional and plant free? Will HS2 be just a track through the land and like many of our motorways today, just provide a route from A to B bordered by high fencing to dull the sound and block off the countryside?

Land is valuable and we already see stations being built over to accommodate housing and retail, and railway banks are understandably in many cases fenced off and not planted and left wild or covered in the low cost option of wire meshed bolder cubes or sustainable concrete.

So today we still have railway space opportunities, but these are often not obvious or require significant vision, determination, and good connections to make changes happen. In London there are still abandoned spaces and opportunities. Here in the heart of the East End in the densest housing area in Western Europe and what some say is the poorest borough in London we have a 700 square metres of  railway line viaduct which has lain derelict for many years and once provided the north south passage through the Isle of Dogs. Some have proposed using the upper elevation to provide community gardens as part of a holistic growing strategy for the Borough, but so far there is little traction. There are significant issues to be addressed but it is there today and provides an opportunity to create an iconic ‘High Line’ or ‘Grow Line’ with unique views over the Island to Canary Wharf, over the Thames to Greenwich and towards the City.

There are other railway partnership opportunities in many urban areas where growing space is scarce. Today, large infrastructure projects such as Crossrail and the Kings Cross redevelopment are providing roof gardens or ‘pocket parks’. Our allotment Society proudly has a small allotment plot in the Crossrail roof gardens which shows the partnership that can exist.

Can Network Rail still hold the key to unlocking some land for allotments?

Should every Allotment have an ACV?

Assets of Community Value (ACV) were established under the Communities Act of 2011 and were aimed at identifying and nominating buildings or other assets such as land that have a main use or purpose of furthering the social well-being or social interests of the local community. Like a listed building it affords them some rights and protection but only part of the answer. Many of the first people to take advantage of this new registration were real ale pubs under the CAMRA umbrella.

Local authorities must validate ACV applications to a stringent critique but once registered, the local community will be informed if they are listed for sale, disposal, or a change of use within the five-year listing period. The community can then enact the Community Right to Bid, which gives them a moratorium period of six months to determine if they can raise the finance to purchase the asset. However, it does not give the right of first refusal to community organisations to buy an asset that they successfully nominate for inclusion on the local authority’s list.

Does it replace the 1925 Allotment and associated acts? No, it complements the statues and adds extra gravitas and a bit of extra protection.

Does it stop Local authorities or other freeholders from selling off allotments? No, but it gives allotments a say and right to bid and stops the rug being pulled literally from under their feet. Importantly it puts a clear stake in the ground which can warn off developers and other land grabbers.

However, one the biggest benefit it gives individual allotments is a framework to fully evaluate and document their value and how they fit into the community.

In order to get our ACV we had to research our history and current status and separate the urban myth from reality. We had to think about the environment and contribution to its improvement. We had to think about our involvement with local groups, with schools and with the heath and well-being of plot holders and their families and the community. Just documenting this and structuring it to compete the ACV submission was an eyeopener not only to what we did but also what we could potentially do.

For some it may be the first step on the road to self management.

This work and wording is also vital to being able to secure sponsorship, grants and can influence funding decisions irrespective of what type of allotment you are. It can also support any appeal to a local authority and even to the Secretary of State.

We were one of the first allotments to go through this process and had to do it because we had an incorrect lease imposed over us in 1994. Under this lease some would say the Borough effectively disposed of us incorrectly. The granted lease was effectively unworkable with respect to the allotments and resulted in 20 years of friction and misunderstanding between all parties. When the leaseholder wished to enter into a new lease with the Borough and extinguish the current one in favour of a longer-term lease, we said no. We wanted a separate lease and clarification on our status.

The Borough formally acknowledged that they had not disposed of the allotments. They fully recognised them and that any disposal would have had to go through a section 8 notice to be signed off by the Secretary of State. In other words they accepted us as being Statutory under the 1925 act which up till then they had always avoided admitting. When the negotiations were getting heated and the leaseholder tried to say they wanted to go ahead without us being separated, we just pulled out the ACV and reminded the Borough of our statute status and the ACV. The result gave us a 99-year lease, peppercorn rent, self-management and full recognition of our statuary status. This could not have been achieved without that ACV.

Today you may think you don’t need one, you do. You may think you can wait until a developer comes knocking, but an ACV is only effective if it is in place before the developer submits an interest.

So why wouldn’t all allotment sites get registered as Assets of Community Value? It costs nothing but some time. The National Allotment Society has now got a lot of experience with the statute, submissions and can help. Sites such as ours are also willing to help and give guidance. 

Today a growing number of sites all around the country have done it, so look up the process as listed under your local authority and do it – you know it makes sense.  

Waiting Lists and Demand for Allotments

Russian dachas

There is a significant increase in demand for allotments today and this is especially visible in urban sites where the scarcity of land is often forcing plots to be split. Is demand now outstripping supply and is this a temporary blip or a more lasting issue that needs to be addressed in a different way?

The allotment is not unique to the UK and they exist all over Europe, Russia and North America. How they are run can differ significantly between countries and many were first established in the 19^th century to offer an escape for the poor from the industrial environment and associated squalor they were living in. They evolved alongside civic libraries and parks all aimed at enriching the quality of life for all. The plots of land were made available for individual, non-commercial gardening or growing of food.

Anna Lindhagen, a Swedish social-democratic leader, visited allotment gardens in Copenhagen in the 19^th century and wrote about the benefits of allotment gardens:

‘For the family, the plot of land is a uniting bond, where all family members can meet in shared work and leisure. The family father, tired with the cramped space at home, may rejoice in taking care of his family in the open air, and feel responsible if the little plot of earth bestows a very special interest upon life.’

Since 1926 some three million European allotment gardeners have been represented by the Luxembourg based ‘Office International du Coin de Terre et des Jardins Familiaux’. They describe allotments as offering:

‘An improved quality of life, an enjoyable and profitable hobby, relaxation, and contact with nature. For children, gardens offer places to play and to learn about nature, while for the unemployed, they offer a feeling of doing something useful as well as low-cost food. For the elderly and disabled, gardens offer an opportunity to meet people, to share in activity with like-minded people, and to experience activities like planting and harvesting.’

Norwegian allotments

Both quotes really some up the value allotments can give their users and the community.

Many European allotments differ significantly to the model adopted in the UK. Many became out of town retreats and allowed for a temporary residence during the summer period.  Russia developed Dachas which means something given in the time of Peter the Great and some would suggest that some of these retreats became elitist during the 20^th century. Many Russian villages now have dachniki as temporary residents. Some villages have been fully transformed into dacha settlements, while some older dacha settlements often look like more permanent lodgings. In North America allotments are referred to as community gardens and can be quite small with starter plots being only 1.5 mt square.

Allotments in the UK have often have swung in and out of demand. As the population prospered and the quality of life rose their popularity waned but in times of hardship and war and general recession their popularity rose. In 1873 there were some 244,268 plots in the UK but by 1918 just after the First World War this had risen to 1,117,000.In the 1940s there were 1,400,000 but by the late 60s this had shrunk to 600.000 and by 2009 shrunk further to 300,000. The Thorpe report in 1969 stated that the declines was down to the country being, ’more affluent, decline in land, and the growth in other leisure activities.’

There is always the question of latent demand which is not consistent across all allotments and can vary significantly even within a region and between urban and rural areas. In March 2008 The Guardian published an article, ‘Coming up roses? Not any more as UK gardeners turn to vegetables.’ In the article they claimed in 2007, ‘Sales of vegetable seeds rose 7% last year and Britain, with a population of more than 60.5 million people, may now be growing as much at home as it did during the second world war’. It went on to quote Geoff Stokes, the then Secretary of the National Society for Allotments, ‘There are roughly 330,000 allotment holders in the UK but waiting lists are growing fast,’ he said. ‘Demand has increased considerably in the last few months alone. It seems there is a complete lifestyle change taking place. 

‘As many as 100,000 people are on allotment waiting lists,’ said Neil Dixon, the chairman of the National Allotments Trust. This figure is not substantiated within the article. Attempts to establish the size of the lists using FOI (Freedom of Information Requests) in London boroughs met with mixed responses. ‘In Scotland and some towns in northern England, the waiting list is nearly as long as the number of people holding allotments,’ Dixon claimed. ‘Almost every council is now under pressure to provide more. Many are now trying to cut plots in half or less.’

Demand for a plot on our allotments has risen sharply over the last couple of years. The current pandemic has seen this rise again sharply to a point where we have over 200 waiting for one of our 100 plots and we currently have an annual turnover of less than 10%. It’s not hard to do the maths.

Authorities have failed miserably to provide the ‘15 allotments for every 1,000 households’ recommended within the Thorpe report. That was 50 years ago and times have changed, populations have changed, and the demand for land and to provide commercial buildings and residential housing continued unabated. It is pointless to quote the Thorpe report today as it will fall on deaf ears. Today is more about civic and community planning, welfare strategy, environmental planning and joining up those dots in local government that some would suggest exist in different rooms.

Allotment demand will increase as residential housing in urban areas continues to shift to garden-less skyscrapers and awareness in ecological issues and climate change rises. Finding answers may not be about providing more allotments but about developing growing and community strategies which include allotments and even nutritional knowledge as part of the answer and not the answer itself.

Our Journey to Securing a 99 Year Lease: Part 2 ACVs, Leases and Co-ops

Yesterday I covered the research and findings into our 130-year-old history. Today I cover the actions we took to secure the allotments future.

ACV (Asset of Community Value) Under the Localism Act 2011 land or property of importance to a local community can be recognised and provided with additional protection from development. Voluntary and community organisations can nominate an asset to be included on their local authority's ACV register.

I had come across this relatively new statute in two other community projects and knew the value of registration. I established contact with the National Allotment Society to enlist their help and learn what experience allotments had with the new law. We were in fact one of the first allotments to seek this status which to date had been mainly taken up by real ale pubs! Today a growing number of allotments have registered as ACVs.

The Act only offers limited rights, but importantly puts a clear stake in the ground, such that the land can’t be sold, developed, repurposed, released without community consultation with the registered group who also have a right to bid. There is also a moratorium period which reduces the risk of being driven by other’s timescales and agenda. Importantly these rights are diluted if obtained after a development proposal has been lodged. It doesn’t impact the allotments rights under the 1925 statute but complements them. For ourselves it was a case of stating who we were, the historic value to community, the usage of the land, the benefits it gave al,l and importantly ensured the land was correctly identified.

Each council will have its own process and any application must pass several tests to be accepted. To say our submission was comprehensive is an understatement. We ensured we ticked all the relevant boxes and supplied a host of supporting material. The detailed ACV evaluation and grant by the Borough is available on our website www.iodadas.com/legal-and-other-refernce

The Lease: I discovered quite by chance that Mudchute Associates wished to extinguish their current 30-year lease early and seek a new and longer term. Our ACV gave us the opportunity to place a foot in the Borough’s door and seek our own lease arrangements and in doing so redress the debacle of 1994. I will spare the meetings, the elongated process that took place, having to explain the Allotment statutes and ACV to some who had not heard of either.

At all stages we were advised and supported by the National Allotment Society. The London Regional Representative also attended several our Borough meetings. The key breakthrough came when others dug their feet in to try to circumvent our involvement. We reminded all of the ACV and that brought everyone back to the table.

It was going to prove fraught and complex to hold out for a totally independent lease and we suggested the use of a Head lease with subleases under it. We had many detailed discussions over some very contentious issues. It was clear that this was a different type of lease with the Borough holding the freehold and certain liabilities directly with the allotments, whilst the head lease covered more of the farm business. Our sublease was to all intent was somewhat an independent lease with stronger ties to the freeholder and the head lessee who could take action against the allotments with the full backing of the Borough, who were still bound by the 1925 statute. To cut a long story short we agreed and signed off on formal terms of contract for a lease. It was to be 99 year minus one day, peppercorn rent, self-managed, recognised our statutory status and as long as we didn’t breach the lease, we were secure. We even got assurances re transfer of the Head lease and in the event that of the head lessee became insolvent, our sub lease would revert direct to the Borough.

The protracted discussions would not have achieved what they did without the free legal advice and support given by the National Allotment Society.

In June last year, the proposed lease framework for both the Head Lease and our lease was proposed to the Borough cabinet by the Mayor and passed. 

The Society mandate: We kept all members informed throughout the journey asked them to vote on the lease terms offered, the move to an incorporated entity, as well as the constitutional changes we needed to make. We needed to explain in detail the options, and specific steps. The votes taken involved all members and easily achieved the 75% threshold required within our constitution.

The Move to a Co-op: To hold a lease we had to be a legal entity. There were several options ranging from a limited Company, to an incorporated Charity, or even a Trust. None of these appealed. Limited companies can become fiefdoms and directors can become once removed from shareholders. A CIO (Charitable Incorporated Organisation) had an appeal over the CIC (Community Interest Company) but allotments aren’t charities and it was felt we would be abusing the ‘charity’ status. This was our opinion and we respected that many allotment Societies have taken these routes.

We were about to give up when the National Society pointed us to the new Cooperative opportunity under the new Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act 2014, which comes under the FCA mutual and society arm and not Companies House nor the Charity Commission. Our membership agreed that the mutuality of a Coop was the way to go and better still we could do this by going under the National Society’s sponsorship and template Rules.

However, we didn’t wish to adopt the template Rules agreed between the National Society and the FCA for sponsored entities. They would require several amendments to fit and every line you altered cost money and had to be sanctioned by the FCA. So, we had to get the mandate from the membership to transfer under the template rules then immediately apply to the FCA for our amendments with the associated formal approvals from our membership to be submitted and sanctioned by the FCA. Once a registered company, this two-staged process was free.

Again, we did it and got our FCA seal and formal approval on the amendments. The Rules are important and the FCA scrutinises and ensures that any Rule changes have followed due membership process and are acceptable under the cooperative mutual approach. We also got the new Rules approved by the Borough and Head lessee by adopting an open and transparent approach.

The hardest thing was moving the new Cooperative to a new Bank. Several banks were unfamiliar with the 2014 statute and did not accept our ‘not for profit’ status and wanted to charge us business rates to bank with them. Only one bank recognised our FCA seal and number straight away and after checking our documents, gave us free banking.

The journey was a hard one, took us four years but was well worth it. We are secure from the developers who are building on the land around us. We now have a very productive and new relationship with the Mudchute Farm that is delivering the obvious benefits we never had. We can now seek to build on our sponsorships and funding to help us with our environmental and community outreach projects. Importantly, those members who follow us now have security of tenure for their lifetime.

We just need to issue the member’s shares certificates and re issue member’s packs, but until the virus eases, that is on hold.

I hope these two articles help others understand what can be done and some of the options available. To date its cost us less than £100 in registration fees with FCA and Land Registry. I cannot stress enough the support, guidance and value the National allotment Society has given us.    

Our Journey to Securing a 99 Year Lease : Part 1 No Shortcuts

‘I am a bit confused; may I ask exactly what our relationship is with the Borough? If we pay rent to anyone for the land? And what the position is with our farm neighbours?’

I looked around the table to my fellow Committee members and awaited the clarity I sought. I was new to the Committee and as treasurer I needed to understand whether we had cost liabilities which I had not seen in the accounts. I also knew there was history, but being relatively new to the allotments, I was unclear what was fact and what was urban myth.

My questions received as many different answers as the number of members that sat around the table with me. What was clear was that no one knew with any authority what the answers were. This was some five years ago and since then we have taken a long and often frustrating journey to gain clarity, address the issues identified and be where we are today and in doing so securing our future for the next 99 years.

I realise all allotments are different, have different legal and commercial relationships with other parties, so some of this journey has been taken, or a different path pursued by others. However, I would like to summarise the steps we took and how we achieved what we did. In doing so I hope that some of what I share will help others to open the opportunities before them and have the confidence to take their own or similar journeys. This is not definitive route, nor is it meant to be prescriptive, but just a sharing of lessons learnt.

Research: It is impossible to understand where you can go unless you understand where you are and how you arrived there. Research might put folk off but unfortunately is part of the journey.

Our allotments are over 120 years old and have survived two World Wars where they not only fed many in the East End of London but being in the heart of London Docks, the whole area was subject to considerable bomb damage and lost records. On consulting old committee records and members, I quickly discovered many conflicting stories and many more questions that needed answers. Many of the records themselves were mainly paper and had not been well maintained and time consuming to review. There were many words but little substance to the answers sought. The Borough Archive Library was then searched, and it unlocked lots of information. As departments had changed names and references were often inconsistent or poorly indexed it was again a challenge to plough through Council minutes and papers. Newspaper records were useful but again often only confirmed what had been discovered.

I did unearth a comprehensive Council Administration book of record on the allotments which covered everything from 1947 to 1962. It detailed all minutes, AGMs, plot allocations, disputes, works. A great source of management information but more about day to day administration. I discovered several important council records which detailed department decisions and importantly those relating to the closure of the allotments and their reopening in the 60s and allocation of extra plots in the 70s.

We were able to conclude:

The earliest record was from 1892, the council took active participation in 1913, between 1913 and up to 1962 there were 365 plots covering the whole Mudchute managed by the Borough and under the freehold of the PLA (Port of London Authority). The PLA provided its own policing of the plots, which were surrounded by high fencing and had a manned controlled ticket access gate. 

  

In 1962 the PLA took back the land to extend the docks. However, it was clear from the records that this was not done fully in accordance to the statute and alternative land that was sought but even then could not be found. The rich Mudchute topsoil was sold off by the PLA. In 1965 and thanks to Lord Simon of the PLA and the then MP Dr Ian Mikado a small piece of derelict PLA land was given to the society as allotments. But this only gave us back some 30 plots. By the early seventies, the PLA had realised that containers were coming, and the docks expansion was a questionable move.

In 1978 we were given a further piece of land to accommodate a further 70 plots. This was initially established through the Borough and as part of the exercise we were granted full self-management and allowed to retain all rent collected. A year later the PLA sold the freehold of the whole Mudchute to the Borough and this in turn was managed by the new LDDC (London Docklands Development Corporation) which was established to transform and rejuvenate the whole Docklands area.

In 1994 a lease was granted by the Borough to Mudchute Associates who had established an urban farm on the Mudchute. The 30-year lease covered all the Mudchute including the allotments. The specifics of how this somewhat audacious move happened remain subject to many different viewpoints and what some would refer to as ‘minefield’ of council papers. The result was 24 years of soured relationships and ambiguity between the farm and allotments and what some may described as ‘sloping shoulders’ from the Borough.

The research and a host of formal questions raised to the Borough established that we were a statutory allotment, that they had not disposed of us in 1994 and that the lease they entered was unworkable with respect to the allotments. We could have left it there, but we didn’t want further ambiguity and wished to secure our rights and position going forward. There was no relationship between the allotments and the farm, no financial obligations and the allotments were not even mentioned, nor the land identified within the lease.  

This may have clarified the position of how we got to where we found ourselves and it did not address how we resolved the mess legally, amicably and rebuilt lost opportunities and secured our future.  

Tomorrow; the steps we took; ACV (Asset of Community Value) we were granted, the Society’s constitutional and tenancy rule changes we needed to make, the change to becoming an Incorporated Co-op and the 99 year lease we were granted.