Ask a council about allotments and the answer tends to come back the same way. There are not enough of them. The State of the Market 2025 report from the Association for Public Service Excellence found that 63% of local authorities report average waiting times of more than 18 months, and that 76% have reduced the size of standard plots to create smaller options. In the Thames Valley and South East, fully subscribed sites are the norm rather than the exception.
This is not a passing trend. The reasons people want a plot come down to permanent changes in how we live, such as smaller homes, tighter budgets and less private outdoor space, and planners need to recognise that when considering new developments.
Why demand keeps climbing
The push towards higher-density development has changed what gets built. Viability pressures and land values drive schemes towards smaller units and apartment blocks, particularly in urban areas, and many residents end up without any private outdoor space at all. For families living in flats with tight budgets and limited square footage, allotments are not a nice-to-have. They help address a genuine gap in provision.
Work patterns have shifted considerably as well. More people now spend at least some time working from home, which has changed how they use and value their living environment. Access to outdoor space during the day matters more than it used to. For someone working from a small property, having somewhere to go outside is not just about weekend leisure. It has become part of daily wellbeing.
Then there is the cost of food. Individual plot production might look modest, but over the course of a growing season it can add up to real financial relief for households on lower incomes. Growing food a few minutes from home rather than buying produce shipped internationally delivers environmental benefits, too.
What people learn on a plot
The theme of this year’s National Allotments Week gets at something the waiting list figures miss. Plots teach patience, resilience, problem-solving and teamwork, and they do it without anyone setting out to run a lesson. Families teach children where food comes from and what a season looks like. Older residents pass on decades of knowledge and get routine, purpose and regular social contact in return.
That matters most on larger mixed-tenure estates, where residents can easily become isolated from one another. Allotments give people a structured reason to meet regularly and a place where relationships form naturally around a shared activity. Those connections often cross tenure boundaries in ways that help knit communities together, which is something very little else on a development manages.
What it looks like when it works
At Woodhurst Park in Berkshire, allotments were included as part of the community infrastructure for 750 homes, alongside a 65-acre country park with nature trails, a pond and a village green. It shows how well-planned schemes can accommodate multiple community needs without undermining viability.
LRG’s Romans New Homes team has handled marketing and sales at the scheme for Berkeley Homes Oxford and Chiltern since homes first came to market, and over that time the difference this sort of provision makes has been clear. It is the thing buyers ask about after the kitchen and the commute, and it is what turns a development into somewhere people stay.
Getting the details right
None of this works if provision is an afterthought. Allotments need proper access, a water supply, decent soil quality and enough space for plots that are actually usable. Half a dozen tiny patches squeezed onto leftover land will not deliver the community benefits that justify the provision in the first place.
Management also needs clear lines of responsibility and funding you can rely on, because nothing undermines community infrastructure faster than neglect. Planning conditions or Section 106 clauses need to address this upfront rather than leaving it vague and hoping for the best.
There is an honest tension here. Land given over to allotments could accommodate additional housing, and that matters when housing need is acute and sites are already carrying substantial obligations around affordable housing, infrastructure contributions and Biodiversity Net Gain. Every requirement layered onto a scheme erodes viability somewhere. The answer is not to require allotments on every development regardless of context. It is to treat them as valuable infrastructure worth fighting for rather than a soft target when negotiations get tight.
A useful moment to be clear
The government’s consultation on a revised National Planning Policy Framework closed in March and included proposals designed to support the delivery of new and improved community facilities. Ministers are working through the responses now, with the revised framework expected later this year. That makes this a good moment to be clear about where allotments sit.
Meeting the target of 1.5 million new homes this Parliament while creating genuinely sustainable communities means thinking beyond housing units on paper. Developments that technically hit housing need but lack adequate community infrastructure simply store up problems for years ahead.
Allotments are one of the few interventions that address practical need and social connection at the same time. They are not theoretical benefits that might materialise years down the line. They start working as soon as plots get allocated, and when done properly, they create places where people genuinely want to live, which is what good planning aims for.
