Five-year wait for Wirral allotments

Mar 4 2009 Birkenhead News

Charles Barnes, former BBC gardener who is waiting for an allotment

GREEN fingered Wirralians are facing a five-year wait for an allotment plot.

Many allotment sites on the borough are now at full capacity – with no plots available at all in West Wirral.

At the end of 2008 more than 500 people were on a waiting list for a plot and the problem has even led to the formation of the Wirral Awaiting Allotments Society.

Charles Barnes, 58, looked after 400 acres as head gardener at the BBC in Reading, but is now considering moving out of the borough because he can’t find an allotment plot.

Mr Barnes, an organic gardener from West Kirby, said: “I thought there might be a little bit of a wait but not five years.

“I’m a gardener but at the moment I don’t have a garden to grow anything in.”

David Jones of Wirral Federation of Allotment Societies, said: “Birkenhead, Wallasey and Bebington all did well for allotments out of the former boroughs which formed Wirral, but the Cheshire side did very badly.

“There are only four sites in West Kirby and one has at least 90 names on the waiting list.”

A spokesman for Wirral Council said: “Within Wirral there are 41 sites administered by the council, containing nearly 1,700 plots.

“The trend nationally is being followed by Wirral in that allotments are increasingly sought after and demand for plots has increased year-on-year for the last five or six years and we are now currently at near full occupancy.

“At a couple of sites, there are a small number of plots available for cultivation now, but at many others there are significant waiting lists.”