In her article in the Allotment and Leisure Gardener earlier this year (1), Judy Steele makes an excellent case for more allotment gardeners to get involved in Agenda 21 activities in their local areas. I would like to add a few qualifications to Judy's argument, however, based on problems and events in Dartford, where I served until recently as the Secretary of the Dartford Road Allotments Association and the Chair of the QED (Quality Environment for Dartford) Allotments Group - part of Dartford's Local Agenda 21.

Agenda 21 is about sustainable development, defined by the Bruntland Commission in 1987 as "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs". Over the next 25 years the Borough of Dartford is going to be one of the biggest building site in Europe. As part of the "Thames Gateway", Dartford is expected to draw development pressures away from other parts of the Home Counties of England, leaving suburbs, market towns and the countryside elsewhere lovely, green and wholesome for future generations. We our making our contribution to sustainable development at the regional level, across the South-East, by surrendering parts of Dartford to bricks, concrete and tarmac. For planners this makes sense - and may even be a golden opportunity, for as Peter Hall and Colin Ward have recently pointed out, Thames Gateway is "a unique chance to design a model sustainable urban development on a huge scale, a model for the entire world" (2). But allotment gardeners don't operate on a huge scale: we garden at the local level, in our own neighbourhoods, on our own plots, on land that is naturally attractive to developers, doubly attractive when it is within existing urban areas into which the government hopes to cram most new homes, and nowhere more attractive than in the heart of the Thames Gateway. If this future "model for the entire world" is to include allotments, as Hall and Ward argue it should (3), then Dartford's gardeners have to ensure that the allotments are still there when the future arrives. To achieve this some powerful arguments are required. Land has value, and land put to one use means that other opportunities are foregone. Public provision of facilities which make extensive use of land, as allotments do, is politically unsustainable without support from one of three sources: a benevolent local authority, privileged protection under the law, or somewhere else.

Judy Steele includes in her article a discussion of Agenda 21 activities involving allotments in Tunbridge Wells, where plotholders appear to enjoy the active support of their local authority, with little hint of animosity on either side. That's not the only possibility. A decade ago there were serious problems in the relationship between Dartford Borough Council and its tenants, which came to a head in 1991 when the council introduced a policy of "no rents - no services" beyond the statutory minimum. The borough's allotments committee was disbanded, the allotments budget abolished, and if plotholders wanted services or repairs, they would have to make their own arrangements. This could have been a recipe for dereliction - if the plotholders hadn't responded. But some did, in a positive way. At Dartford Road, a new association was formed, dedicated to running the largest site in the borough. A lease securing full responsibility for the management of the site was obtained, checked out by the National Society, and signed in 1992. The rents were doubled, with the unanimous consent of the plotholders. The old rents only covered a quarter of the council's operating costs: the new association halved the costs through voluntary effort, but insisted that plotholders make up the difference. Within eighteen months the number of plotholders had doubled (thanks mainly to good reports passed on by word of mouth), all of the derelict plots inherited from the days of council control had been reclaimed, and disappointed applicants were being redirected (as they still are) to other sites in the area.

By 1996, when QED was launched, the allotments association at Dartford Road was firmly committed to managing the allotments in a manner responsive to the needs of plotholders as individuals (for example, by reducing the size of plots for tenants in genuine difficulty, and guaranteeing a priority position on the waiting list for anyone leaving the site voluntarily), and to the needs of the local community (for example, by banning bonfires until November 5 - one of our occasional barbecue nights). The site was well organised, and the association was in a position to take advantage of any opportunities that came its way - and on its own terms.

Here we find an ingredient that should be added to Judy Steele's account. Local Agenda 21s can work if they are driven by local authorities, as at Tunbridge Wells, and plotholders can get involved as individuals, but to get the most out of the process, it is important to be organised, with some idea of what your site needs, what your site can offer, and what your plotholders will tolerate. This is important because Local Agenda 21s are contested: what goes on depends on who has the loudest voices and the strongest arguments. You have to know what your own agenda is, and be prepared to articulate it.

But this begs a question. A site that is full meets the first prerequisite for holding on to the land - and the plotholders at Dartford Road enjoy protection under the law on a statutory site. So why bother getting involved in Local Agenda 21? Part of the answer lies in the timing. 1996 was the year that QED was born - and also the year of the Judicial Review of the Gosforth case, the outcome of which demonstrated that the Allotments Acts offer very little protection after all. Of course, the subsequent Parliamentary Inquiry did call for greater legal protection for allotments, and the National Society is pressing for the Allotments Acts to be brought up to date. But the Government has made it clear that allotments already enjoy a privileged status in law, and that in its view the problems facing allotments are not the result of inadequate laws, but of inadequate demand. If, eventually, the law is modernised, allotment gardeners may find that their legal position is weaker, not stronger, an outcome that will force the movement at all levels to argue its case on merit if land is to be saved for allotments. At Dartford Road we'd cracked the demand problem by 1996; it was time to look at the bigger picture, and to look somewhere else than the Allotment Acts for a robust defence of what we do.

So, when QED was launched in 1996, we got involved. The initial structure of Dartford's Local Agenda 21 consisted of a number of issue groups - transport, pollution, waste management etc. - which afforded no special recognition to the value of allotments. Dartford Road responded by helping to form a committee with representatives from other sites in the area, which then applied to QED for recognition as an issue group in its own right.

This seemed to take some of the other participants in QED (including the borough council) somewhat by surprise, and for several months the allotment gardeners went through a process of establishing their bona fides by participating in the other groups. This highlights a problem that Judy Steele overlooks in her article: that in some local authorities, nobody but the allotments officer (if there is one) really understands what allotment gardeners do. And the same goes for local businesses, community groups, and everyone else who gets involved in Local Agenda 21. To be effective you have to explain yourself, to establish your credibility as a genuine partner in the search for sustainability at the local level, preferably through practical examples of how allotments can help other people meet their own goals in ways they would never have thought of before.

The Allotments Group was eventually recognised as an issue group within QED in January 1997, with its own Chair (currently Mr Richard Stone, an organic allotment gardener from Swanscombe), a Secretary (Mr Robert Johnson, from Dartford Road), and a Research Officer (the present author is the third incumbent). The Group is formally constituted in a way that maintains its autonomy, as is appropriate in a borough where devolved management is the core allotment strategy, and which protects the autonomy of participating associations, which remain accountable to the tenants on their sites. Within QED, the Allotments Group organises activities at the local level, but is actively involved at the regional and national levels as well.

Local activities are of three kinds. First, we have worked hard to develop synergies between allotments and issues which interest other groups. For example, a horticultural therapy project at Dartford Road for adults with mental health problems (4) was a joint initiative with the QED Health and QED Waste Management Groups (the latter provided the shed) and B&Q (who provided tools under the "Quest" scheme). A small community composting scheme at Wilmot Road Allotments was launched in partnership with the QED Waste Management Group, which has also helped a number of sites obtain sound but otherwise unrecyclable pallets from a local paper mill and power station for use in building compost bins and raised beds. And an ecological gardening leaflet has been produced with the QED Biodiversity Group, in cooperation with Woking's Local Agenda 21. Projects like these have acted as practical foci for the activities and interests of other groups, while bringing to the allotments benefits such as broader interest and useful materials. Most of all, however, these projects have created new stakeholders in the future of Dartford's allotments - without undermining the value of allotment gardening to the plotholders themselves.

Second, the Allotments Group has sponsored allotment-only activities, such as the Dartford Festival Allotment Competition, a publicity leaflet to help advertise vacancies, and the QED Allotments Newsletter - published twice a year and available directly to every plotholder, to the general public in the Civic Centre foyer, and to the world via the Internet (5). And third, the Group has worked closely with the media, including local newspapers and the gardening press, to help spread the word to the local community and beyond about the value of the allotment gardeners' contribution to Local Agenda 21. In generating publicity, we take care to share the credit around with the other groups, and with the local authority. This is inherently fair, a simple way of building confidence and trust between the partners in QED, and a useful antidote to any bad feelings still lingering from the last days of direct management. Dartford Borough Council has undoubtedly benefited from the activities of the QED Allotments Group, which have contributed significantly to the council's success in winning a coveted "Green Apple" award in 1998 (6).

The Group has also taken steps to promote Local Agenda 21 as a way forward for allotment gardeners in other parts of the country - through its submission to the "Future for Allotments" Inquiry, participation in the Local Government Association's advisory group on a best practice regime for allotments (an "Allotments Advocacy Document" due to be published by the LGA later this year is likely to pay particular attention to the opportunities presented by Local Agenda 21) and, with the assistance of Dartford MP Dr Howard Stoate, at the Parliamentary level through Early Day Motion 1598 (Allotment Gardening), which drew cross-party support in Session 1998-99.

In conclusion, over the past three years the allotment associations which have participated in QED have found an alternative arena for cooperation with the council, outside the strains of the landlord-tenant relationship, and based on a partnership for mutual benefit: allotment gardeners end up with better sites, the council can take pride in a Local Agenda 21 in which there is genuine participation by ordinary local people, not just environmental activists, and the allotment associations have built links to many other organisations and interests which can be developed further in the future. For once, everyone is a winner.

That, at least, is the good news. There are some dangers, however, which should also be addressed, and which are difficult to detect in Judy Steele's article. Here are three of them.

First, we've been here before. The environmentalism of the 1970s brought many new faces and new ideas into the allotments movement - to little long term effect (7). Enthusiasms come and go, and it would be as well to prepare for disappointments as well as success. This time around things could be different, of course, because the new environmentalism is driven not by pressure groups but by local authorities orchestrated by national government and international agreements.

But second, many local authorities are finding it very difficult to make Local Agenda 21 work, and some are losing enthusiasm for it, as "business as usual" or the next big thing ("Best Value") push Local Agenda 21 well down the list of priorities. Judy Steele claims that Agenda 21 will "progress and develop as the years go on. You should be able to join in at any stage". This may not be true. We are at a stage where local authorities need active supporters for Local Agenda 21, a stage which offers tremendous opportunities for allotment gardeners to put the case for what they do, but that stage may pass - and pass very quickly.

And third, with or without Local Agenda 21, the case for allotments still has to be made, and as the government has stressed, it has to be made at the local level. Those associations which build links with the wider community should end up better placed to make their case, and better placed to take advantage of whatever new opportunities come along. Those which don't will have to rely on those other things for protection: a questionable and perhaps unsustainable body of law, and the continuing benevolence of their local authorities in the face of growing pressures to do other things with the land.

(1) Judy Steele, "Agenda 21". Allotment and Leisure Gardener, Issue 1, 1999, pp. 27-28

(2) Peter Hall and Colin Ward, Sociable Cities: The Legacy of Ebenezer Howard. London: John Wiley and Sons, 1998, p. 157

(3) "There are other features that could and should be incorporated in at least some of these developments. ... [These include] an allotment garden, which ideally would be provided in the communal open space in the middle of a superblock, entirely surrounded by houses and their own small private gardens. It would answer the insistent call for organic food from an increasingly sophisticated and worried public". ibid., pp. 206-207

(4) Richard Wiltshire. "Dartford Road Allotments". Growth Point, March 1999, pp. 10-11

(5) The QED home page can be found at http://www.btinternet.com/~richard.wiltshire/

(6) The Green Organisation, Environmental Best Practice by Local Authorities, Commerce and Industry 1998-99: A Work of Reference. Northampton: The Green Organisation, February 1999, pp. 17-18

(7) David Crouch and Colin Ward, The Allotment: Its Landscape and Culture. Third Edition. Nottingham: Five Leaves, 1997, Chapter 4

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