Concerns raised over allotment company’s new site in north Sheffield
Worried residents have raised concerns over an allotment company’s new site in north Sheffield.
Roots Allotments has started working on a piece of land on Butterthwaite Lane, near Ecclesfield, to open its new site, where the plan is that hundreds may be able to grow their own food.
However, this, or rather the lack of communication and the experience of others around other sites in the country, has made some people in the area uncomfortable.
Susan Davidson of Butterthwaite Lane told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) that she had a number of major concerns about Roots Allotments’ development, including privacy, traffic, and the loss of biodiversity.
But the biggest fear of them all is the potential for future housing development on the green belt.
She said: “The biggest fear for residents near these sites, is that these allotments are a stepping stone to getting a change of use to allow housing development.
“This can now already be seen as a real risk at the South Sheffield Site as the Bowshaw show ground has been proposed as part of the North East Derbyshire Council Local Plan.
“We wanted Sheffield City Council to force them to submit a full planning application so the whole site could be assessed for suitability and the residents could make their case for objections before these so-called allotments are completed and protect this Green Belt land from future development.
“If their sites truly fall under permitted development, why are Roots so keen to avoid scrutiny of their plans?”
Ms Davidson, who lives in a house that is dating back to the 1500s, said another, practical, concern was the access to the site. Butterthwaite Lane is a single-lane road, and Loicher Lane was full of potholes until very recently.
She said additional traffic on these roads – potentially hundreds of more people – would make them extremely dangerous.
She added: “Neither road is suitable for the amount of visitors that it will bring and parking and pollution will be a massive issue, undoubtedly visitors will attempt to use our private road, maintained at the cost of the residents in our very historic farming hamlet, (parts of our house dates back to the 1570’s but there was a house here much earlier).
“Loicher Lane is already an accident hot spot, narrow with multiple blind bends and a 60mph speed limit. Other sites are open from 7am – 10pm which causes real security and privacy issues for us as the topography of the site will allow their users to have direct line of sight into our rooms including 1st floor bedrooms.”
Ms Davidson also said residents didn’t know what was happening with the site as there was no communication between the company and the neighbours,or the wider community, so they could only look at other sites up-and-down the country for guidance.
She said Roots have claimed permitted development rights – so basically they would not need planning permission – based on their ‘allotments’ being allowed on agricultural land.
She wants assurances that the land would not be used, further in the future, for anything other than allotments (the company has stated it has no ambition for housing on the site).
Ms Davidson said they had discussed this with local councillors who apparently have made enforcement aware of the company’s business model and how they operate.
She said she would argue the use of the land is not purely agricultural but recreational – as at other sites the company has put events on, such as weddings and festivals. The fear is, she added, down the line if they want change of use they would just submit a retrospective planning application.
Ms Davidson wanted to reiterate that the neighbours were not against allotments in general.
“It is unlawfully developing an unsuitable site in the Green Belt that we oppose”, she added.
The Local Democracy Reporting Service contacted Roots Allotments with a number of questions.
Firstly, Ed Morrison, the founder, was asked whether the concern around future change of use – essentially changing the allotments into a housing site – was unfounded or not.
He said: “The fears of house development are warranted, but not towards us. We have no ambitions of turning our allotment communities into housing, we want to get people growing, enjoying the benefits of being outside, making new friends and eating chemical free food.
“We would like to eventually purchase our land and secure it for growing forever.”
Mr Morrison added the building of houses on greenbelt reduces “our opportunity to grow on what is prime agricultural land”.
He added: “Build on brownfield, grow on greenbelt.”
Mr Morrison was also asked why neighbours had not been contacted by his company prior to the development.
He said they don’t tend to make contact before launching their growing communities.
He added: “Across the UK there is an era of fear of the unknown and we aim to meet this fear with positive actions once our communities are growing, rather than words.”
He said their site in South Sheffield is open to everyone, a location “that is fostering an incredible sense of community cohesion, peace and tranquility for those who use it.”
He said of the concerns over traffic on Butterthwaite Lane: “This is already a reasonably busy lane and from our own surveys of our existing open sites our impact on any traffic is likely to be little to null.
“As the use of the land has not changed beyond agriculture legally we are not required to do anything here but we will always put our best foot forward to proactively solve any issues if they were to arise, however we do not expect any, if it’s like the rest of our locations.”