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Who Owns This Space? Authorities and Guerrilla Gardeners

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Informal Urban Agriculture

Part of the book series: Urban Agriculture ((URBA))

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Abstract

Ranging from private land to public land, guerrilla gardeners colonise space which is not their own. This chapter proceeds to critically discuss the land used by guerrilla gardeners: from questioning the suitability of the spaces to host urban agricultural activities, to considering who owns the land, we proceed to delve deeper into these spaces on which guerrilla activity is occurring. This chapter demonstrates how some adopt the ‘guerrilla route’ to avoid authority schemes, along with the perception that pursuing a formal route would result in copious amounts of paperwork. The chapter concludes by reflecting on the idea of guerrilla gardeners eventually working with authorities and whether this would be feasible: using the examples of F Troop and the Women’s Group, we conclude that whilst some will embrace legitimisation, others would avoid authority in order to not lose the ‘thrill’ element of their actions.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In the UK, allotment gardening and leisure gardening activities have been common practice for many years; this runs somewhat counter to Steel’s argument.

  2. 2.

    A term used in the UK for the local authority.

  3. 3.

    Legislation which ‘allows a Local Planning Authority (LPA) to enter into a legally binding agreement or planning obligation with a landowner in association with the granting of planning permission’ (Cheltenham Borough Council 2014).

  4. 4.

    David Cameron was the UK Prime Minister at the time of this discussion.

  5. 5.

    The Big Society idea is a government programme encouraging people to volunteer and help out more in their local area (Dillon and Fanning 2011).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Environment and Life Sciences, University of Salford, Salford, UK

    Michael Hardman

  2. Birmingham School of the Built Environment, Birmingham City University, Birmingham, UK

    Peter J. Larkham

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  1. Michael Hardman
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Hardman, M., Larkham, P.J. (2014). Who Owns This Space? Authorities and Guerrilla Gardeners. In: Informal Urban Agriculture. Urban Agriculture. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-09534-9_6

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