Campaigning at the Food and Garden Show - Cambridge Needs More Allotments

I spent all weekend at the brand new Cambridge Food and Garden Show on Parker's Piece. I was working on an allotment stall, selling some veggies and trying to get people to sign a petition to ask the council to provide more land for our over-subscribed allotments.


Carl, Mary and Dave

Growing food locally is one of the most environmental things we can do (after giving up flying). In Cambridge there are huge waiting lists for allotments (around 380 people). In many ways this is GREAT since it shows there is a lot of demand from people who want to grow their own food. Unfortunately it also means that some people wait for many years before getting an allotment and others just give up and don't bother to apply for one, which makes it hard to gain a true impression of the demand. The council have a legal obligation to provide land for this purpose so we put together a petition and gave up our weekends to campaign a little. The council seem to be listening and are very cooperative so we have high hopes for our campaign.

If you live within the city of cambridge, please do sign our petition.

I have done a few marches and a bit of campaigning this year but this weekend and this campaign seem by far the most important and worthwhile. It was a pleasure working with the team: Mary, Colin, Jerry, Ceri, Kim, Yolanda and especially the legendary Dave Fox, who is perhaps more organised and enthusiastic than anyone I have ever met (he also won many of the vegetable prizes!).

The team from Oakleigh Fairs were also incredible, especially Emma and Charlie. Very welcoming of our little stall and very good at what they do.