Over 2000 Fifers on waiting lists for allotments

Fife-wide an estimated 2,100 residents are on wait lists for council garden plots, and the council is seeing more demand for community growing projects.

Councillor Lea McLelland (SNP) said: “I’m not shocked to see the amount of people on the waiting list. Coming on the back of the cost of living crisis we’re in, people want to feel as if they’re fighting back and their way of fighting back is to produce and manage, maintain and eat their own food - and no one has the garden space to do that.”

Fife Council has a legal obligation under the Scottish Government to provide garden allotments. However, there’s no obligation to provide anything else like community gardens or other types of community growing.

“Like other local authorities Fife has recognised a desire for other types of growing like raised beds, orchards or community gardens,” explained Peter Duncan, Fife’s garden allotments officer.

To that end, the Cowdenbeath Area Committee has committed £60,000 from the local anti-poverty budget to “to ensure the development of community food growing initiatives across the area.”

“There is a place for traditional style allotments and there always will be, but I think some people want to dip in and out of projects without making a full time commitment. I think there are different models throughout Scotland that Fife could replicate very easily,” Mr Duncan said.

Fife Council has recently undertaken a survey of people on garden allotment wait lists, and Mr Duncan said the results make for “interesting reading.”

It found that the Dunfermline area in particular is one of the areas seeing the most demand due to housing expansions overspill from Edinburgh.

The survey also found that the majority of people on the waiitng list are older, retired residents keen to pass their knowledge on to the next generation.

“There are people who can still manage allotments on their own, but community involvement and community spirit allows people to decide how much they are tied to a garden. I think community projects are absolutely the right way to go,” said Cllr McLelland.