HELP US PUT A STOP TO HOUSING ON OUR LOCAL ALLOTMENT SITE

In 2006, Worplesdon residents from the Broad Street/Broadacres area got together with like-minded people from neighbouring Westborough to form a campaigning group (WBDRA) dedicated to preserving our areas Open Spaces generally and to preserve the Aldershot Road Allotment site in particular.

What we're fighting for is to save over 2 acres of a 7-acre site from being bulldozed and concreted over.

What's at stake is 2 acres of ancient Woodland Margin, Greenfield Open Space and Wildlife Habitat AND the battle against a seemingly intransigent and undemocratic local Council.

In the mid-1990s, not many people were interested in Allotments and a lot of sites nationally fell into disuse. Sadly, the dereliction was often promoted by local Councils keen to flog off the land to developers. The legal term for Councils doing this is "blighting" - where they fail to promote Allotment Usage, make life difficult for allotment tenants eg by turning water supplies off, failing to make sites secure & worse! Councils hope they will encourage tenants to give up, then they can justify flogging off the land.

In our case all this happened and in 1997 Guildford Borough Council decided to have a public consultation about issues in the Borough. They did consult with the usual Statutory Consultees and authorities BUT didn't consult with Allotment tenants AND WORSE STILL, they didn't consult with the local people either (several hundred of us as it happens) or local interest/community groups.

What they did was to send round a leaflet called "About Guildford" to all the houses in Guildford in late July/early August 1997. Of course that's the time most people are away on holiday so minimum readership guaranteed!

In this leaflet was a mention of “Have Your Say” about the area BUT THERE WAS NO MENTION OF ALLOTMENT SITES AT ALL!!. So, if you weren't away on holiday and did actually read this leaflet, who would reasonably conclude that there was any threat to our local Allotment Site?

6/7 years later, we found out by accident that the Council had published a thing called the 2003 Local Plan on their Website. In it, there was a small paragraph ("H3" - in the Section 5 Housing Plan) which said that part of our Allotment Site was going to be turned into Housing). THIS WAS THE FIRST TIME any local people had heard of this and WE WERE OUTRAGED!  

We were not consulted, we were not involved and a beautiful piece of the area's Greenfield Open Space was going to be built on!

Our heritage, our Open Space, our Community Asset had been STOLEN BY STEALTH!

So we're fighting a battle about our human rights as Council Tax payers, opposing unelected officials ruining our area and an undemocratic local council keen to flog off our community assets. 

If that's not enough, after 1997, the Council withdrew some 30 former Allotment Plots from cultivation and let them go fallow. Then they created a new Allotment Management Agency (GAS) and put a Council Employee in charge. Guess what – the Council didn’t consult Allotment tenants about that either! This Agency (GAS) only has a 25-year lease for 70 Allotments on site - BUT NOT for the former Allotments in the section under threat of Housing!

AND WE'RE FIGHTING FOR THE AREA'S WILDLIFE TOO! 

Mother Nature has taken a keen interest in the land earmarked for Housing and a vast array of Wildlife now proliferates in this part of the site.

Some of the rare species which inhabit, breed and feed here are: Pipistrelles, Stag Beetles, Slow-worms, Dormice, Bullfinches and we have actually seen a rare Wood White butterfly!

Some of the commoner species who thrive & prosper here are:

BIRDS: Green Woodpeckers, Lesser & Greater Spotted Woodpeckers, Long-tailed Tits and all members of the UK Tit Family, Finches (Gold, Green), Corvin (Crows, Magpies & Jays), Robins, Blackbirds, Thrushes, Wrens, Sparrowhawks, Kestrels, Firecrests, Goldcrests, Wood Pigeons, Collared Doves.

ANIMALS: Field Mice, Newts, Voles, Foxes, Hedgehogs, Squirrels, Common Frog....& many many more!

And as an amateur entomologist myself – I could fill pages about the Butterflies, Moths, Beetles & Insect life that we have on this site

All of this is under threat! Once it's been concreted over, all of this will have gone - never to return!

To add to our campaign, there has been a resurgence of interest in Growing Your Own & Vegetable Gardening - thanks to people like Jamie Oliver, Alan Titchmarsh & Monty Don. And let's not forget Wallace & Gromit in "Curse of the WereRabbit"!!

There are 160+ names on the Waiting List for Allotments in Guildford, and some 17 families waiting to get on to our site (Aldershot Road site).

Furthermore, there are acres of Brownfield development land in the Borough - most of it owned by the Council & Government Depts. Why not build houses on there?

SO PLEASE HELP & JOIN OUR FIGHT TO SAVE THIS SUPERB WILDLIFE SITE & COMMUNITY ASSET.

You can help by signing our petition at: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/allotmentsgfd

You can read about the Allotment site at: http://members.lycos.co.uk/washa

You will be able to keep up to date by visiting this website.

Thanks for your time.

David Bird

WBDRA Chairman