Ursula Buchan

Digging the dirt

News that the government is setting up a ‘land bank’ of brownfield sites, consisting of bits and pieces of spare or disused land, and encouraging councils and private landowners to lease these out to local groups as allotments, underscores the impression of a national appetite for ‘growing your own’.

issue 27 March 2010

News that the government is setting up a ‘land bank’ of brownfield sites, consisting of bits and pieces of spare or disused land, and encouraging councils and private landowners to lease these out to local groups as allotments, underscores the impression of a national appetite for ‘growing your own’.

News that the government is setting up a ‘land bank’ of brownfield sites, consisting of bits and pieces of spare or disused land, and encouraging councils and private landowners to lease these out to local groups as allotments, underscores the impression of a national appetite for ‘growing your own’. Certainly, according to the National Society of Allotments and Leisure Gardeners, there are at least 100,000 names presently on allotment waiting lists.

John Denham, Secretary of State at the Department for Communities and Local Government (or DoSAC, as we devotees of The Thick of It like to call it), compared this initiative to the wartime ‘Dig for Victory’ campaign.

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