New Plots to Come at Bowbrook Community Allotments

We have 68 plots at our allotment site, Bowbrook Allotment Community, and after just three seasons of being open we have a waiting list of about 50. Phase two was on the cards from the word go but with budget constraints we didn’t really think it would ever come to fruition. The plan was to open up the field next to us and create about 50 extra plots.

Meetings with town council representatives and reports in the local newspaper over the last year or so indicated that this might still happen. Then recently the allotment management committee were asked if a few members could meet with representatives from the town and the county councils to look at plans. It seemed that things would be moving ahead in the autumn of 2012.

Budget constraints had effected the plans as the draft map for the new extension showed just 25 plots covering half the field. Still we couldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth! Ideas were exchanged and the proposals will go in for planning permission and hopefully work will be done by the autumn.

So we can halve our waiting list. The plots will be so tightly packed that little space will be available to develop our community gardens but we should gain the pond, a spring and a few yards of stream and a triangle of land beneath a group of mature trees. We shall endeavour to make these exciting places!!

The strip of pastureland that will become our new allotments.

The poor neglected pond that will become part of our site.

The old Ash tree that will overlook the new allotments.

The spring emerging from its old collapsed brickwork. The water table is so low it is currently dry.

The mature trees in the corner of land to be developed as part of our community gardens.

So, opportunities are coming our way. The council will tidy out the pond, removing old fences, and other rubbish and hopefully the barbed wire surrounding it. A fence will be built around it with gated access, all conforming with the latest health and safety requirements. The old Ash tree will be attended to by tree surgeons to make it safe and ensure its future health. The 25 plots will be prepared for cultivation.

And then it will be up to new plot holders to cultivate them and the committee to develop the green spaces. the area around the spring could become a bog garden and the area under the mature trees could become a mini-arboretum. We shall see!

2 replies on “New Plots to Come at Bowbrook Community Allotments”

Awesome. A cracking piece of land for you lot to get stuck into. Looks like you have some decent pallisade fencing too around the site (v. important in my experience).

I’ll look forward to seeing more photos of this project if you post them.