The Future of Allotments

Until section nine of the Community Empowerment Act comes into force it will not be clear what Scottish government’s intentions are for the future of allotments but it is unlikely to restrict rights of tenants or obligations placed on local authorities.

It may be hoped that the new regulations will help improve and protect allotment provision. Presently the law places a duty on a local authority to provide plots but fails require particular expenditure or dictate how long may be allowed for the local authority to meet their obligations. The 1919 Land Settlement Act specified that funds should come from the Public General Health Assessment for the provision of allotments but that provision was appealed by the Public Health (Scotland) Act in 2008. Allotments, therefore, compete for ever more scarce local authority funds with other priorities.

A method of protecting and perhaps even improving allotment provision may be to demonstrate to the local authority that other statutory duties might be carried out simply and economically by providing allotments.

Allotments have been shown to contribute to the requirement on local authorities to adapt to climate change imposed by the Climate Change Act 2009 by exercising its functions in a way calculated to contribute to delivery of CO2 emission reduction targets..

The Local Government in Scotland Act 2003 created a new discretionary power enabling local authorities to do anything they consider likely to promote or improve well-being.  This could mean the promotion of good physical and mental health through the development and promotion of policies likely to have a positive impact on health, particularly on health inequalities. Trellis can provide data which may be used to show that allotments can contribute to all of these.

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