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A whole lotta good

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Source: Catherine Deshayes

The Scottish Allotments and Gardens Society (SAGS) is campaigning to save unofficial allotments at ‘North Kelvin Meadow' a block of green space belonging to Glasgow City Council between Clouston Street and Sanda Street...

Once the Clouston Street Playing Fields the land has always been public green space - it has never been built on.

Some time ago there was a plan to sell off part of it for housing and to use the proceeds to regenerate the remainder as community sporting facilities, but this never happened and now the City is on the point of selling off the whole site to a housing developer to build 115 flats.

According to SAGS there would be some ‘planning gain' from this. some of the money will go towards regenerating a nearby kick about pitch and the developer will leave 20per cent of ‘open space' on the site but this includes the approaches to the apartment buildings and is not community green space.

However after years of council neglect the local residents took matters into their own hands. They cleaned up the space, which the City had allowed to become a dump, and planted fruit trees and flowers and vegetables. Now they have a community orchard, small allotments for residents and a peaceful recreational area. Given that the nearest official allotment sites have a 10 year waiting list and the local housing is mainly tenements with no individual gardens this seemed like a great idea.

The Council has other ideas. They see the space as a revenue raising opportunity and local Councillor Jim Mackechnie is keen to sell the land for flats. He's previously said when referring to this land "I am afraid I do not believe allotments would add to the amenity of the locality. They would be visually unattractive". The residents are now at a last ditch campaign to stop an imminent sale.

The campaigners are asking supporters to visit the blog at http://northkelvinmeadow.com/about/

Source: www.propertytalklive.co.uk