Action Briefing Apr 2004 - May 2004
	The Newsletter of Birmingham Friends of the Earth

Victoria Jubilee Allotments: the campaign continues . . .

On Thursday 29th January, the Birmingham City Council’s Development Control Committee, deferred for the third time the planning application to build houses and various other planning gain ‘sweeteners’ on the site of the intentionally blighted yet incomparable Victoria Jubilee allotments, next to Handsworth Park.

Admittedly, councillors are between a rock and hard place here. Do they accept the arguments of local people against any more loss of green space in Handsworth, backed by the City’s own Unitary Development Plan (UDP) and the latest government planning guidance, and reject the plan, almost certainly precipitating an appeal by the developers to the Secretary of State? Or do they accept their officer’s recommendations to approve the plan, defying the concerns of local residents, backed by Birmingham Friends of the Earth, over the constant nibbling away of green space throughout Birmingham’s inner suburbs?

In the latter case we will seek the opinion of the courts; approval for the development would represent a departure from best planning practice and the surrendering of the largest area of green space in Handsworth since the Heathfield Estate was built over 60 years ago. And all this when Handsworth is full of high quality empty and derelict housing as well as brownfield sites crying out for sensitive development of new homes.

Demand
The decision recommended to the Development Control Committee is in clear breach of their duty to assess demand for allotments, not just on the VJA site but across the City. The UDP (Para 3.62) states that “Where it can be demonstrated that the demand for allotments has fallen, consideration will be given to alternative uses for surplus allotments.”

On p13 of Planning Officer’s report to BCC Development Control Committee (4th Dec 2003), we are told that waiting lists in the vicinity of VJA equals 124 plots and on p14, acknowledging the City holds no centralised waiting list information, he relies on a population based analysis of demand to suggest an over-provision of 279 plots.
'Paper exercise'

This “paper exercise” hardly amounts to a legitimate demonstration of fallen demand as required by the UDP. In effect, BCC is using its own failure to assess demand to demonstrate lack of demand! As such the officer is in clear breach of his duty to assess the need of the local community for allotment space.

That duty is very clearly set out in Paras 1, 2, 3, 5 and 10 in PPG17: Planning for Open Space, Sport and Recreation. Where then is BCC’s assessment of the need/demand for allotments on VJA? Or allotments within 1 mile (or whatever is an appropriate minimum travel distance) of the VJA? Or allotments within the district i.e. Handsworth or North Birmingham? Or allotments within the city?

HAIG’s 1996/7 survey of local demand showed potential demand for about 400 plots. Since no such assessment has been made by BCC, they cannot approve the project, or defer it merely to pursue a legal agreement with the applicant. They must either defer and meet the duty to assess, or reject. We note also that Westbury Homes, the developer, have not demonstrated fallen demand through an independent assessment.

Embarrassing
Councillors are asking embarrassing questions about their officer’s thinking on this application. We are enormously appreciative of their interest in this pivotal case. It bears on the future of urban food growing, the encouragement of local economies and the ways urban green space complements housing and business. Building over any more fallow green space, however strong the short term arguments for it may be, undermines longer terms prospects for regeneration.

It’s taken a decade of political leadership and hard work by officers to get Handsworth Park on the road to recovery. This has been achieved without surrendering any of it to development. If the City is willing to play the long game on this, they can expect to achieve the same for the Victoria Jubilee allotments.

Simon Baddeley
Handsworth Allotments Information Group (HAIG)