Cemented locks and deflated diggers: the war over privately run allotments

With waits for council plots in England decades-long, Roots is renting out green space – but some communities are digging in When police arrived at the field outside Bristol in October 2023, two old cars, wheels removed, were blockading the gates. Protesters had hauled them across the entrance to stop developers building on the slice of north Somerset green belt. The threat was not housing or industry, but a company building vegetable patches. Roots builds privatised allotments to give city d...

By Alex Daniel