Do councils have to supply a minimum number of plots per thousand population?
No, there is no legal national minimum provision standard, but councils do have to audit allotments, set standards of provision, and assess their actual provision against these standards as part of Planning Policy Guidance 17 (PPG17). Most allotment strategies quote the 1969 Thorpe Report which recommends a minimum provision equivalent to 15 per 1,000 households, but this is not legally binding. It is estimated that since 1969 some 30% of the then available allotments land has been lost irrevocably. Hence, the NSALG recommends that the irreducible minimum provision today should be 20 standard (300 sq. yd) plots per 1,000 households. The Survey of Allotments, Community Gardens and City Farms, carried out by the University of Derby on behalf of the Department for Communities and Local Government in 2006 showed that the national average provision was 7 plots per 1,000 population.
