A document dropped through my door on Saturday. It was from the Allotments Association asking for our help in protecting the site of 50 allotments in the village.Apparently we need to get our allotments designated as a Local Green Space to protect them from the development of ‘green areas of particular importance to local communities’.
The document was clearly written, its advice was detailed and sensible. I will follow its instructions because I love our allotments; I love Harry’s lettuces that have a kick like a horse and sell for 50p in the local shop; I hate the idea that in a village where visible skills have disappeared- no cobbler,garage mechanics,animal husbandry, knitting shop,bakery- the allotments too might disappear.
But the document requires detailed study. It requires some computing skills-searching/pasting/linking. It requires time- quite a bit of time.It reminds us to ‘clearly indicate which section of the Draft Local Plan is being referred to…Paragraphs 10.3 &10.4 ..under Policy SP9.
So I have another plan. How about we don’t ask people to go through complicated hoops to protect- and it may not work- their ancient and productive ways of living. How about we say instead that allotments can never be built on, taken away from their traditional usage? We could suggest to developers that they fill in forms pleading for the right to destroy something communal, and then we could turn down their applications automatically.
What local people up and down the land are currently spending acres of time on, is getting support for their local green spaces to get them designated in Draft Local Plans for the next 20 years. The amount of work involved is staggering .These pleas to protect green areas that are ‘demonstrably’ special to local people are responses to a truly weaselly Government mind set. Which is that unless a place is ‘special’ it has no value.
But our local communities are made up of things, places and people that are not ‘special’ but are ordinary in some modest historical way. They are part and parcel of how our lives are lived; they have a value that sometimes cannot be expressed beyond ‘its always been there’. The green spaces may be small, may be overgrown from time to time, may flourish and fade- but unless they are actually there, their potential is destroyed for ever.
So in addition to ordinariness being consigned to some undesirable category in Government’s mind set, the idea of permanence as a value in itself, is also thrown on some bonfire.
We have got things badly wrong. Indeed got them upside down and back to front. Allotments which should of course be protected, end of story, show us just how wrong things are.