A Taste of Saltaire

Victorian Saltaire's plan included allotments to allow residents to grow their own food, and the plots - some behind the church and some beside the railway - still exist. I gather there is a very long waiting list to rent one. A few beside the Caroline Street Club belong to Shipley College and are used to train their horticulture students. Now a new community initiative has sprung up, A Taste of Saltaire, master-minded by the Sustainable Saltaire group with support from Leeds Metropolitan University students. They have been given a couple of plots to grow food, hoping to involve, educate and encourage local people to eat locally grown and healthier food. But the real thrust of the initiative, as far as I can gather, is not simply to use allotment space but to encourage the local community to take over small patches of unused land around the village and turn them into vegetable plots. They have a proposal to use a patch of waste-land quite near my house. I'm not sure that the local dog-owners will be very pleased though, as at present it seems to function as an unofficial dogs' toilet!