Little Moor Allotments, Newcastle

Welcome to Newcastle Allotments Working Group Blog. Here you will find extracts from DIG THIS!, the Newcastle Allotment News Letter. In particular, we hope to bring you some ideas for growing unusual vegetables, both for your delectation and delight, and to present at the allotment and gardening shows in your part of the country.

Please post your seasonal tips and hints. Please also post questions to see if our visitors can provide the answers.

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About The Working Group - a fully constituted voluntary organisation.

Newcastle is the only place in Britain where the general management of its allotment sites is in the hands of the allotment gardeners themselves.

In 1999 Newcastle City Council disbanded the Allotments Sub-Committee and handed the day-to-day running of its 65 sites to a newly elected Allotments Working Group with the professional support and advice of the authority’s allotments officer.

The group allocates the annual allotments budget – the greater part of which is always devoted to fence repairs, replacement and maintenance, and are always looking for ideas to promote allotment gardening, improve site management and attract more people to take up the hobby.

Visit the Newcastle Allotments Website.

http://www.newcastleallotments.co.uk/

DIG THIS! November 2005

GRANDSTAND ROAD ALLOTMENTS

The Freemen of Newcastle have decided to close down Grandstand Road allotments, a tiny well-kept site with just seven plots tucked away in a corner of Duke’s Moor.

These allotments have been in use for well over half a century, every garden is occupied and cultivated, and all seven plot-holders have made it clear that they want to stay.

Less than ten years ago Mr. Leonard Fenwick, spokesman for the Freemen, told the High Court: “Allotments are a key area and well-established feature on the urban fringe areas of the Town Moor. These are primarily areas of little value for grazing cattle but very suitable for open space recreation” and “security of tenure is only at risk where there is evidence of a respective allotment association not maintaining a site to set standards.”

Well organised and used sites, he added, were “part and parcel of the future of Newcastle Town Moor as a protected open space.”

In spite of his assurances no fewer than five sites have been closed down by the Freemen in recent years with the loss of hundreds of plots.

This leaves something like 1,000 acres of open moor on which the freemen are allowed by Act of Parliament to let out grazing for a maximum of 800 cattle, making it probably the most under-used resource in Newcastle.

The closure of Grandstand Road will add less than one third of an acre to this vast pasture – not even enough to feed a single cow.

So what’s it really about? Well, Mr. Fenwick has been quoted in both the Evening Chronicle and The Journal as saying this move is part of a “structured environmental programme”

Quite what this has to do with the Freemen’s right to graze cows is a bit of a mystery to members of Newcastle Allotments Working Group, so we have written to the freemen asking for a meeting at which they can explain the programme and its implications, and give us an opportunity to comment. At the time of going to press we are still awaiting a reply.

PLEASE SIGN OUR PETITION

http://www.petitionthem.com/default.asp?sect=detail&pet=2106

CALL FOR RECIPES

NAWG is seeking new, original and exiting recipes for vegetable and fruit dishes. Please post them here. http://allotmentrecipes.blogspot.com/