This UK allotment has the longest waiting list


Updated on 07 April 2020 | 1 Comment

A spot of gardening at your local allotment is still permitted during lockdown. Here are the easiest and most difficult places to bag yourself a vegetable patch

With lots of us making the move towards a more eco-friendly lifestyle, holding the key to an allotment is now almost as desirable as securing the key to your own home.

Eager to minimise our food miles and take on a fulfilling new hobby, there are huge waiting lists for allotment plots across the UK, with wannabe growers in London understandably facing the longest waits.

Plus, a visit to your vegetable patch counts as your daily form of outdoor exercise under UK-wide lockdown rules, as long as social distancing is observed.

READ MORE: Easy gardening hacks to take the graft out of gardening

Shed retailor Power Sheds sent freedom of information requests to councils across the UK and found that as of 2019, there are 90,000 people waiting for a space at one of the 300,000 council-run allotments across the UK.

In-demand areas

The longest waiting list for a single allotment was at Bushy Park in Richmond-upon-Thames, southwest London, where you’ll have to join the queue behind 637 others.

The second-largest waiting list of 560 was St Anns & Westfield, also in London, with many homeowners in the space-starved capitol having small gardens or no outside space at all.

But while nine of the top 10 longest allotment lists are in London, the county with the longest average waiting list overall is actually Cumbria, where residents currently have to wait behind 180 aspiring growers before being allocated a plot.

It’s good news for residents in Scotland's Argyll and Bute and Roxburgh though, where according to the research, there are no waiting lists. The study also found that wait times in Wales tend to be shorter than in the rest of the UK, at nearly half the duration of those in England and a third of the length of those in Northern Ireland.

UK allotments with longest waiting lists

County Allotment name Waiting list
London Bushy Park 637
London St Anns & Westfield 560
Hampshire Milton Piece 559
London Manor Road 481
London Beatrix Potter 400
London Sixth Cross Road 399
London Old Palace Lane 383
London Heath Gardens 375
London Newham – 1 322
London Newham – 2 321

Counties with longest waiting lists

County Country Average waiting list
Cumbria England 180
County Down Northern Ireland 146
South Lanarkshire Scotland 113
Dunbartonshire Scotland 103
Dorset England 90
Durham England 84
Lancashire England 60
Devon England 59
County Antrim Northern Ireland 58
London England 54

Brandon Attack of Power Sheds said: “We have seen a trend with more and more urban gardeners wanting to get into growing fashionable foods such as chillies and sweet potatoes.

“With garden space at a premium, I guess this comes as no surprise that people are trying to find some additional space to grow their own fruit and vegetables.”

READ MORE: Grow-your-own inventions that'll feed your family for pennies

Main photo: Imran Khan Photography/Shutterstock

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