Allotment Demand Rises Nationwide

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, demand for allotments was already on the increase, especially among the younger generation wanting to do something about Climate Change, with a desire to reduce their carbon footprint. Nationwide 500,000 applications were received during lockdown, adding to the figure of 52 people on a waiting list for every 100 plots that currently exist in the UK.

Here in Newton Abbot the take up including members who have a plot, plus prospective members who want a plot, is currently 4% of households. We forecast a requirement of an extra 400 probably 500 additional plots to meet the demand that will come from the community that will purchase the houses in the local plan that haven’t been built yet, that includes the 150 people currently on the Waiting List.

So why the surge in interest? Simply put, it reduces your carbon footprint in ways you never think of.

So How An Allotment Can Dramatically Reduce Your Carbon Footprint?

If you grow your own fruit and vegetables then your dependence on commercially grown crops will drop, with the following knock on effects –

1. Less crops shipped around the world reduces pollution.
2. Less shipping reduces the need for all the materials needed to build and run the massive container ships, and the pollution caused in the mining and processing of the materials used to build them.
3. Less commercially grown crops reduces the need for single use plastic packaging, which is better for the environment and reduces pollution caused in the production process.
4. Less single use plastic packaging cuts the pollution caused disposing of them.
5. Less commercially grown crops reduces the amount of pesticides and herbicides that damage the environment.
6. A reduced requirement for pesticides and herbicides, means that less of these chemicals need to be produced, that in turn, cuts the emissions resulting from the production of these chemicals.
7. A visit to the allotment is good for your physical and mental health, you leave with fresh produce with no chemical residues, whereas the majority of commercially grown (non organic) crops have chemical residues from spraying during the growing season still in them when you purchase them.
8. The cost of your allotment rent can be recouped in one single picking of raspberries at the height of the season.
9. Some children are up to five generations removed from anyone who ever worked on the land. Today more and more young people are bringing their children to the allotment to learn skills that will otherwise die out.
10. An allotment is a place to find friendship and join in with the community spirit, or, alternatively it can be a place to find solace and solitude on your own plot.

Ten reasons that only scratch the surface of why it is good to have an allotment.