Garden Cities
Debate between Baroness Sharples and Baroness Hanham
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, the Question is very apt but it relates almost entirely to big developments because garden city developments are not in their nature small. The noble Lord will know that these sites are very complicated. The garden city principles were enumerated by the Deputy Prime Minister in his speech to the National House-building Council last November. He said that we should build places which,
“draw on the best of British architecture and design, which have their own identity and character”,
and have a crucial role in keeping the countryside intact. He said that garden cities enable people to live sustainably and to move easily between work and home. Those are very large principles and demonstrate that a development needs to be large to bring all that in.
Baroness Sharples
Can my noble friend say whether allotments will be included in these plans?
Baroness Hanham
My noble friend never misses an opportunity to mention allotments. Of course, if allotments were proposed—and they could be—within these plans, I am sure they would be considered by the local authority. In any case, as my noble friend knows, no allotment ground can be vacated without the Secretary of State’s permission.
Allotments
Debate between Baroness Sharples and Baroness Hanham
Baroness Sharples
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to ensure that the provision of allotments is sufficient to meet demand.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Hanham)
My Lords, it is local authorities that have a duty to provide allotments. Nevertheless, the Government are working with voluntary and community sector organisations, including the Federation of City Farms & Community Gardens, the Allotments Regeneration Initiative and the National Society of Allotment & Leisure Gardeners, to promote the importance of allotments and to encourage and support local authorities and other landowners to make more land available for food growing.
Baroness Sharples
With a countrywide shortage of plots and a growing list of applicants, who in some cases have waited many years, does my noble friend know why councils do not follow the good example of Christchurch in Hampshire, which is developing an allotment strategy consultation to help everyone concerned?
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, I am sure they can do that without any intervention from Parliament. As I said, local authorities are responsible for the provision of allotments and for encouraging their own communities to look at the sort of strategy that the noble Baroness has suggested.
Allotments
Debate between Baroness Sharples and Baroness Hanham
Baroness Sharples
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have for the future of allotments.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Hanham)
My Lord, it is local authorities that have a duty to provide statutory allotments. The Government are keen to support local communities that want to use local spaces for community food growing, and to protect existing land for this purpose. New neighbourhood planning provisions in the Localism Bill will provide a new right for communities to shape their local areas, including the means to boost allotment provision.
Baroness Sharples
I thank my noble friend for that reply. I realise that the Localism Bill will help, but are local councils playing by the rules in providing alternative sites when those present sites are needed for development or whatever? An enormous number of people who write to one now are looking for allotments and cannot get them. They have to wait years.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, we already know that there is a 50 per cent extra requirement for allotments. Local authorities can, of course, make land available if they have it for allotments. The neighbourhood planning provisions in the Localism Bill, to which my noble friend refers, will enable neighbourhoods to identify land where they think allotments could be provided within their neighbourhood plan and have that agreed by the local authority. There are, therefore, methods by which new allotments can be provided, but I recognise immediately that there are far too few for those who want them.
Allotments
Debate between Baroness Sharples and Baroness Hanham
Baroness Sharples
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to increase the number of allotments.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Hanham)
My Lords, the provision of allotments is the responsibility of local authorities. Allotment legislation places a duty on local authorities, except in inner London, to provide sufficient allotments where they consider that there is a demand for them in their area. The Government are supportive of innovative approaches to making land available for community use, including food growing and community land-banking. Meanwhile, licences and leases are being developed by the Federation of City Farms and Community Gardens and the Development Trusts Association. All these could be ways in which communities gain more access to land for allotments.
Baroness Sharples
I thank my noble friend for that reply. Is she aware that the National Trust has established allotments at several of its properties? Why cannot other organisations do the same? With the new planning regulations, should not more encouragement be given to garden owners to plant their own vegetables?
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, the National Trust is indeed doing an extremely good job in providing access to part of its land for allotments. I think that we would all be glad about that. I am not quite sure how many other landowners or landholders might be happy to do this, but I am sure that the example that has been set by the National Trust will be followed. There is plenty of enthusiasm and encouragement for people to start growing vegetables in their own gardens. There is also encouragement for people to be community gardeners and growers, and there are vegetable plots all over the country.