This blog was written by University of Stirling MPH student Ellie Phelps.

Over the last few months of restrictions and lockdowns, I have tried to find ways to get outside and feel less constricted. Being stuck inside has limited my social life, to the point where I’ve felt quite lonely, but I’ve realised that my allotment – and being in green spaces generally –  has massive benefits on my physical and mental health, which amount to a broad set of outcomes that surpass just having somewhere else to go.

As somebody fairly new to academic research, theories about methodologies learnt in my first module, learnt from research papers but not actually applied by me, exert an authority that can feel a bit mysterious. I was most comfortable with realist approaches and have tried to think about ways I see this approach in my day-to-day life. This is because a realist approach talks about things that can’t be clinically measured and quantified, but also avoids going down entirely interpretive avenues.

There is obviously a lot of unwelcome ‘public health’ going on around us at the moment, and communities are finding ways to live with it – my allotment is one example of this. There are a mixed bag of people that use the allotment, and since going to the plot I have heard all sorts of theories about covid19 that range from incredibly well-informed, to madder than a box of cheese, or perhaps just very different from my own point of view, or just tired of the whole thing.  I do not think many of us go there to talk about public health. I’m sure some conversations get quite heated but I don’t know about that, since I’m the only young-ish woman there and often end up being treated like some kind of rare vegetable.  This little community is, however, unified by a common interest to do with the productive use of shared land, and there are mechanisms in place that are not just observable, but contextual too, with joint participation and decisions being made about soil health, the local ecology, and each other’s welfare.

It would be good if I could get younger people in my neighbourhood to join me. The realist approach, in this community, might help demonstrate that social systems are independent, and that plot holders will find meaning in the shared use of land which is often lacking due to land ownership being largely monopolised. I have read that the English public is unable to access 92% of land and 97% of waterways by laws of trespass. This seems to me to demonstrate the barriers that communities face when coming together to use land productively, and with very few incentives to overcome these barriers why would people bother?

It is not just pride in where we live. There is also the distinction between the cooped up flats and houses that we might be restricted by –  my house included –  contrasted with the places of interest that make us feel connected and productive. Since covid19 we have all felt confined – those of us who are not lucky enough to have a big garden, at least. With financial clout, comes lifestyle choice, and green spaces. For example, in the last year there has been an annual house price rise of 5.5%, with houses in key rural locations contributing to that increase. It seems that covid19 is putting a further premium on our shared green spaces.

The use of shared land to create communities of interest within the same space that local communities live occurs in affluent spaces. What affluent communities’ value is because the affluent value it, and so with postcode lotteries, local Waitrose, and shared green spaces. There must be meaning in shared spaces, even if the spaces we are looking at are unable to create local places of interest due to underfunding, or a lack of say in local land management. So, this brings me back to a realist approach. This is because I think the focus should be on the context within which people find themselves. It should not be a successionist view that defines less affluent areas as having less say in land management. The question is, what is it about poorer areas that result in a lack of shared green spaces?

It is understandable that, at a certain point, less affluent areas may become fatigued with the additional work required to access green spaces, and that despite local interest, there exists barriers to accessing land and using it for a common goal. I do not think that these barriers are insurmountable, and there are lots of examples of communities overcoming such issues, such as the residents of Michaelston-y-Fedw, who single-handedly dug 15 miles of trenches to house cables to improve internet connection. But I wonder who among my community would be willing to undertake such a massive task? The additional burden of work required of less affluent communities to manage local land could certainly be disincentivising.

The vast majority of our land is controlled by big institutions which are often hard for communities to identify, representing a further burden of work. Shared community land, or at least dialogue between landowners and their community, offer the chance to manage common resources and create greater sustainability. This idea of ‘greater sustainability’, in my allotment community’s mind, is in comparison to state or market forces that limit our ability to choose how we get food. Simply put, if there are no available spaces for us to grow vegetables, we do not grow vegetables. We learn from the context we find ourselves in. For me, that means being on a waiting list for 5 years before accessing my plot. To other allotment communities, the focus could be on promoting health and wellbeing through garden therapy, or creating a greater diversity in local ecosystems, but these initiatives are stalled by lack of available land – or simply a lack of access to unused land. In other communities, questions raised through participatory action research, in which under-represented groups are given a voice, there might be the opportunity to find new direction, illustrating the diversity of community land management, but – again – these things take time. This is something the Scottish Government is pushing to improve via their land reform acts, which seek to allow communities the legal power to:  a. register an interest in any land asset in Scotland, and b. potentially force the sale of an asset if neglect or mismanagement can be proven.

Simultaneously, and in light of covid19 restrictions, and in relation to increasingly polemicised communities, we have a society defined by a number of factors that are ostensibly out of our control, and this lack of control is increasingly reminiscent of the context in which poorer communities find themselves, which restricts our ability to share resources and diversify our community skills. After all these months of isolation, communities might be in even greater need of control over their local land, especially in poorer areas, where access to information about who owns unused, or poorly managed, land is hard to come by. We do not need to own a large garden to access green spaces, and local communities are clearly in need of some green space of their own.