Action Briefing Apr 2003 - May 2003
	The Newsletter of Birmingham Friends of the Earth

Billesley Lane Allotments Update

On Sunday 16th March Billesley Lane Allotments Society reluctantly decided not to pursue a judicial review to secure the allotments’ future. As you recall, these wonderful allotments have the misfortune to be owned by Moseley Golf Club who are keen to replace them with a practice green.

The City Council supported the allotments and tried to get a Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO) to secure the land. Unfortunately, this was turned down by the inspector as an “infringement of the Golf Club members’ Human Rights to enjoy their own property”. The allotment holders, of course, have human rights too and these could have figured in any further legal action.

Decision
It was a difficult decision the allotment holders had to make that Sunday. They had been advised they would be more than likely to win the Judicial Review, as the Inspector’s decision was widely regarded to be flawed (I mean legally, as well as morally). However, it was felt that a second CPO or any other attempt to secure the allotments forever might not be so successful. There was little choice but to accept the Golf Club’s offer of the whole site until 2005 and then one third of it until 2018. Lots of allotment holders, lawyers, Council staff and others have fought hard for these allotments, so this is a major disappointment. Needless to say, planning applications may not be favourably received by Birmingham FoE or the local community, the vast majority of whom supported the allotments.

Threat
Allotments are part of the real economy, the one that happens outside financial institutions and that gives people quality fresh food and valuable recreation. And yet many allotment sites around the city are under threat, including ones at Yardley Green, Springfield Road, Harborne Lane, Wychbury Road, and finally the Selly Oak site at Harborne (being obliterated by a big new Sainsbury's so that instead of growing their own veg people can pay through the nose to have it air freighted in from famine-hit countries thousands of miles away).

Which brings me to the future. At the meeting where the allotment holders’ decision was taken, someone commented that the Golf Club could have had the land returned after the “Dig for Victory” campaign ended back in the fifties. In the next year or so we could be seeing another Dig for Victory campaign, as huge increases in the price of oil and a nosediving economy force us to stop the ridiculous transporting of food over thousands of miles and revitalise the real economy. Perhaps we will even see the whole golf course turned over to urban farming!

Karen Leach