Celebrities like David Beckham and Gen Z TikTokers are leading the nation’s growing obsession for fruit and veg patches – as waiting lists for an allotment soar to an all-time high.
English football icon Beckham, 48, is trading in his ‘golden boots’ for a pair of green-figured gloves after applying to build a giant greenhouse, allotment and new road at his £12million Cotswolds mansion.
The former Manchester United and England legend regularly posts pictures tending to his vegetable plot at their rural bolthole, this week releasing an image of him embracing his daughter Harper, 12, at their vegetable garden.
But Beckham’s bid to build a giant greenhouse, revealed earlier this year, sparked controversy among locals, who lashed out and accused him of bringing ‘bringing suburbia’ to the countryside.
Meanwhile, a new generation of garden-loving Brits are taking to social media, filming videos documenting their daily struggles of trying to get their plots to bloom, with some clips on TikTok raking in almost a million views.
But the renaissance of the quintessential country allotment has come at a toll, with more than 150,000 in England now on a waiting list – as aspiring horticulturalists in some areas now face a staggering hold-up of 15 years before they can get a plot.
Experts warned rookie growers were ‘giving up’ and abandoning patches within a few weeks after realising tending to them was ‘not as glamorous as it seems on TV’, amid claims councils are not acting quickly enough to find new tenants.
David Beckham, 48, gushed over his daughter Harper, 12, as they posed in their organic farm for an Instagram snap
David and Victoria Beckham have applied to build a giant greenhouse, allotment and new road at his £12million Cotswolds mansion
TikToker MashtagBrady (left) has notched up hundreds of thousands of views showing off his allotment, while others on social media have filmed cooking videos at their plots (right)
Some allotment videos rake in thousands of views on social media (pictured is an allotment user picking her vegetables)
In the past 12 years, the number of people waiting for an allotment has almost doubled. Figures shared by Greenpeace show there are now at least 157,820 applications sitting on council waiting lists in England, up 81 per cent from 2011’s total of 86,787.
Campaigners have blamed a huge boom in demand during the Covid pandemic and sluggish turnover times for abandoned plots for causing the hold-ups.
But angry allotment holders have also pointed the finger at ‘lazy’ councils for failing to spot and turf out plot-hoggers, who have given up on their gardens and not used them in months.
Ayesha Hooper, director of the South West Counties Allotment Association, represents some 7,000 people and organisations across the UK and Northern Ireland.
‘People take on plots thinking its easy. It’s not. It’s a commitment. It’s not as glamourous as it appears on the TV. It’s really hard work. Some people can’t do it,’ she said.
Ayesha said vacant plots and delays in getting new people in had made it a nightmare to find a new allotment, adding: ‘I waited about five years for mine. There are people waiting 10 years in the bigger areas. It’s all a mess. It’s ridiculous.
‘People have quite possibly died waiting to get on a list. It sounds awful but it’s possible. Some of the waiting lists are huge. They’re years. You really don’t stand a chance of ever getting an allotment.’
Ayesha Hooper, director of the South West Counties Allotment Association, said finding an allotment was a nightmare
Ayesha’s allotment garden in Barnstaple, Devon, is pictured
Researchers have found that across Britain there are 178,552 applications clogging up council allotment waiting lists.
The average waiting time for an allotment is three years. But in people living in Islington, north London, faced a staggering 15-year wait for a plot.
Horticultural expert John Butcher, 60, has given up on his search for an allotment, having spent years trying to get on a waiting list for one at Wyre Council, north of Blackpool
‘It really is a postcode lottery if you can get an allotment or not,’ said the garden centre worker from Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire.
‘I’ve been trying for seven or eight years to get an allotment. You can’t even get on the waiting list. I’ve even asked them if there’s a waiting list for a waiting list and they’ve said no. I’ve just given up now.’
Engineer Andrew Stacey, 64, has had his plot in Trowbridge, Wiltshire, for 12 years. He said his allotment had dozens of people waiting but claimed poor management by the local council had left patches vacant for years.
‘You can see lots of our plots on the site not being used at all and sometimes they’re left like that for months or even years,’ he said. ‘You see people one or two times then you just don’t see them again because its too tough. The cycle goes on and goes.
More than 150,000 people are on the waiting list for an allotment (pictured is engineer Andrew Stacey, 64, at his plot in Trowbridge, Wiltshire, )
There are more than 150,000 on a waiting list for an allotment in England (pictured is a plot in Devon)
A TikToker films himself as he builds a fence for his allotment
‘The council just don’t come around and check they’re being used. Occasionally they have a purge then come round and write people letters and kick them off.
‘I wouldn’t say they’re lazy. But to my mind it wouldn’t take much to simply come round once every three months and check that the plots are being used. It’s not very difficult and wouldn’t take much effort.’
The local authority with the longest waiting list was Bristol, with 7,630 outstanding applications, followed by Sunderland, Portsmouth, Southampton, Edinburgh and Manchester.
A spokeswoman from Islington Council, which had a 15-year waiting list, told MailOnline: ‘We want a greener, healthier Islington, and to bring the benefits of gardening to as many people as possible, we have many successful community gardening projects, which can be a brilliant alternative to allotments for our residents.
‘As a small inner-city borough, we have a limited number of allotments. There is tremendous pressure on space in Islington and the demand for allotments hugely exceeds the supply.’
The tradition of allotment holding in Britain hails back to Anglo-Saxon times when swathes of land were commonly held for growing food, grazing livestock and collecting firewood, before the enclosure acts, over four centuries, where aristocrats fenced off public land for their own use.
The modern system of allotments – named for small patches of land attached to tenant farmers cottages – emerged in the 19th century, and at the beginning of the 20th century the Allotment Act imposed a legal responsibility on local authorities to meet residents’ demand for allotments.
The National Allotments Society said it was committed to working with councils and associations to ensure sites are ‘properly managed’.
Alex Parker, a spokesperson for the society, added: ‘Inevitably there are the occasional situations where, perhaps, a plot holder might misuse their allotment, or underestimates the effort involved in looking after their plot, but our legal team and representatives work with councils, associations and tenants to overcome problems and support sites to manage non-cultivation and behavioural issues.’