Allotments

Report on Meeting held on 3rd Arpil, 2008 by Sylvia Sharples

The meeting was arranged to ascertian if there is enough interest to form an allotment society and find out if there is any land which can be made available in the Ordsall and Langworthy areas. There were three people there who are already involved outside of our areas, who went into great detail about how to proceed to establish a group and then press for suitable land in the area.

A lot of the discussion covered communal plots, green gyms, environmental issues, mental and physical benefits, and disabled acess. It seems that if there are anough people interested, funding is available from many sources to set up a group to assess available sites and in some of the areas, soil samples would need to be taken to make sure the ground is suitable for food production.

There needs to be an infrastructure set up to run any designated area with a committee who would allocate the plots, with precedence being give to disadvantaged persons and not the affluent people who have recently moved into the area, who would be very quick to take advantage of the low cost of rental of these plots.

There is a public meeting at the Civic Centre in Swinton at 3pm on 21st April to discuss a green paper from the government on allotments. People are urged to go along and take part in this discussion.

The next meeting regarding the Ordsall and Langworthy initiative on allotments is at 10am on Thursday 15th May 2008 when it is hoped that a framework can be set up to proceed towrds making allotments available in these areas. Any site needs to be within walking distance of a persons home and food production is for their own consumption.

It was decided that now was the time to act before any more green spaces are earmakred for development. LPC Living is going to look into this matter and report to the next meeting.