Homeswapper.co.uk details

HouseExchange.org.uk details

find.gardenlend.co.uk details

Our details

Property type:

Flat

Room details:

One bedroom

Features:

Balcony
Central Heating
Double Glazing

Landlord:

Wandle HA

Additional details:

This is a great flat with a long hallway with a good sized living room and bedroom, a smallish kitchen, a separate toilet and a bathroom all leading off. There’s additional storage space in the loft. The flat is located in a quiet cul de sac off Martin Way. It’s a stone’s throw from South Merton station, bus stops for Sutton and Wimbledon, and local shops (including a Post Office). It’s a 10 minute walk to central Morden (Morden Northern Line Underground Station) with its supermarkets, banks, bars and restaurants, and a 10 minute bus journey to Wimbledon with its huge shopping facilities. Rent is £87(including maintenance)per week (from 02.04.07). There’s a well - maintained communal garden and recycling bins are provided. It’s a good location with quiet neighbours in a pleasant area of Wimbledon. A bit shabby chic at the moment, the entire block is being refurbished externally next year, with significant improvements proposed such as secure storage areas for each flat (for bicycles etc.), extended bin facilities and enhancements to the balconies. We love it here but we need a garden.

Requirements:

The swapper is seeking a one bedroom bungalow, house, flat or maisonette, almost anywhere in the UK.

Additional requirements:

Private garden for own use. Ground floor or semi-basement. Close to shops, Post Office and public transport (bus / tube / train.) Within easy reach of river or canal preferred.

Contact details:

Email address: ian@GardenLend.co.uk
Mobile phone: 07985 980 669
Daytime phone: 0208 286 9116
Evening phone: 0208 286 9116

Map data ©2008 Tele Atlas - Terms of Use

(All maps are accurate within 100 metres)

Photographs:

1. People wishing to have others working on their gardens
2. People wishing to work on others’ gardens
3. A garden for ourselves

have met with only moderate success (none at all in no. 3), I set down to think about what we were missing.

Then I had a flash of inspiration - if people did not want the intrusion of strange gardeners nor the prospect of unpaid toil in the vineyards of another, why not just swap the domiciles and attached gardens?

This boiled down to keeping the houses and gardens as they were and - instead - swapping the residents.

Such a solution would work out for all concerned. People would have the garden they wanted without interlopers or the risk of exploitation.  Oh, did I mention? we might also find someone who would want to swap their ground floor flat and garden with our 2nd floor flat and balcony.

We have been trying to swap to a flat with a garden for some years, having tried our local council, housing association and various housing exchange websites.  The one shortfall in all these organisations is that they do not take garden or greenspace requirements into account when allocating or exchanging properties.

All I would need do would be to set up such a site where provision and meeting of garden requirements was paramount.  Like in so many other endeavours, if one feature - such as a garden - is of over-riding concern, then others - such as location - are more flexible.

Sublime genius!  Now only to put it into action.

There need to be 3 categories:

Domicile with Garden offered
- in exchange for domicile without a garden;
Domicile with Garden wanted;
- in exchange for domicile without a garden;
Domicile with Mismatched Gardens
- in exchange for domicile with a differing garden;

And lo! a new forum subject area and three subsidiaries were brought into being:

• House (and Garden) Swap along with its message boards:

• • Domicile with Garden offered

  • Domicile with Garden wanted

  • Domicile with Mismatched Gardens

These forums are designed to allow people wanting to swap a domicile with a garden for a domicile with either no garden or with a differing garden or green space to contact each other and to start the process of exchange.

You will need to contact your landlord and / or solicitor to actually set about the legal process of exchange.  GardenLend is only acting as a conduit for exchange of initial information; all else is the visitor’s responsibility.

There! All done.  Now all we need is for people to register and post their requirements in the appropriate forums or to reply to messages posted.

By the way, we have a lovely flat in sunny SW20 and are looking for a garden flat almost anywhere in the country, preferably with ready access to a river or canal.

… the association of ideas was quite mind-boggling.  Dole claimants = unemployed people; not finding work = a bad thing = worthy of punishment; finding work at the bottom of holes in gardens = quite tricky, at best; lots of holes = lots of piles of earth = flood defences, perhaps.

At GardenLend.co.uk, it has proven an uphill (or down-hole) struggle to find anyone willing to dig holes in anyone else’s garden, let alone advertise for the free hole-digging and earth-turning service that another might wish to provide.

Employment blackspots do also occasionally coincide with concreted urban areas: whence will the gardens to be dug come?  Also, what if those “ordered to spend an entire nine-to-five day in an office looking through situations vacant” would rather return to the land, or at least to the garden?

I suppose that Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell might wish to avail himself of GardenLend’s garden(er) finding service at http://find.gardenlend.co.uk/ - I shall write to him and see what he thinks.

Your ideas and comments are welcomed, as ever.

Full story from:

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23595598-details/Dole+claimants+who+refuse+to+find+work+must+dig+gardens/article.do

PS. The last line, ‘A small “no conditionality” group, including … a few carers will get benefits with nothing asked in return’ was a real eye-opener. Carers receive just over £50 per week for giving up 35 or more hours a week to care for someone else.  I suppose that Mr Purnell would have them oversee the whole digging scheme …

http://landshare.channel4.com/ - Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s latest initiative to to make British land more productive and fresh local produce more accessible to all.

Your thoughts are appreciated, as always.

“HOMEOWNERS in a Flintshire village are being asked to give up parts of their gardens to meet the soaring demand for allotments … Flintshire county councillor Klaus Armstrong-Braun has backed the idea, saying that local authorities are legally obliged, to provide allotments and also that more urban land should be allocated for ‘agricultural’ use, adding “People using gardens as allotments is a win-win situation.”

from http://www.eveningleader.co.uk/news/Flintshire-councillor-backs-39give-up.4632052.jp#3377934

This is a brilliant idea - one that my wife and I have been expounding for some time.  At the end of June, I contacted the Wrexham Leader in response to the rise in food prices push up demand for Wrexham’s allotments.

Nearly 4 months ago, I said

“According to Matt Sims of the Wrexham Leader, demand is soaring for allotments in Wrexham as rising food prices, growing concerns over food miles and demand for organic produce prompts a new generation to grow their own. http://www.wrexhamleader.co.uk/news/Rising-food-prices-push-up.4219320.jp

The scheme - although online - is locally based and led, based on need and availability.  People wanting garden space to grow fruit and vegetables register their desire so to do, giving brief details of their aims and ambitions.  Others, with gardens that are underused or neglected, post the details of the land they have that could be turned over to more productive use.  Either by browsing the lists or by replying to details posted, the two then contact each other - firstly online - and, should they want to take matters further, arrange the finer details, including share of produce and take matters from there.  Couldn’t be simpler and avoids all the waiting involved with local authorities coming to a decision.

Please register at http://find.gardenlend.co.uk/ucp.php?mode=register and take the first steps towards your green dream.”

Quoted from:
http://blog.gardenlend.co.uk/2008/06/29/rising-food-prices-push-up-demand-for-wrexhams-allotments/

Similar voluntary schemes are taking off in Totnes, parts of London and are being discussed in Transition Towns.  Surely Wrexham is ideally placed to take the lead in Wales?

Will keep you all posted of developments; why not get on to your own council to see if such a scheme would take off in your area?

Garden Swap
By Homegrown Evolution(Homegrown Evolution)
Urban gardens are not only fun; they support low-carbon food production, create economic development, inspire healthful eating, build community, create opporunities for education, address watershed health concerns, create productive …
Homegrown Evolution - http://www.homegrownevolution.com/

The Totnes Garden Share Scheme on the BBC
By Rob
Rather than waiting for allotments to be forthcoming, Garden Share is a great way of unlocking land for growers, especially when it is accompanied by the gardening training we are currently runnning. Garden Share is run by TTT with …
Transition Culture - http://transitionculture.org

At last, the penny is starting to drop and people are realising that in these increasingly financially straitened and environmentally perilous times that co-operation is the only sustainable way forward.

Please join GardenLend at http://find.GardenLend.co.uk and help both yourselves and your neighbours grow nutritional, quality foods locally.

The BBC have a video of the Totnes scheme on their site at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7668344.stm and the Totnes scheme is online at http://totnes.transitionnetwork.org/gardenshare/home

Now that we can truly said not to be lone voices in the gardening wilderness and that such schemes actually do work, why not join us?  Membership is free and the usual rules of posting apply - basically good manners and respect for each other.  We do also have a shop on the site for all your gardening needs.

Frustrated gardeners and garden owners - now is your chance to take the plunge and to help transform not only your lives but that of those around you and - in time - make for a better planet.

More info at: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/world-vegetarian-day.html

“What”, I hear you cry, “has this to do with me?”  Well, quite a bit.

A vegetarian diet is good for you because:

• It is healthier - processed foods are just not as good for you
• It takes far more cow food to feed a cow only to eat it than is required to gain the same nutrition by people eating the grain and cereal crop - and cutting out the middle cow from the cycle of birth, exploitation, death, use of dwindling resources and general rumination
• the Bible tells us so; as do most religious texts if you squint at them hard enough with the lights low
• it is far easier to grow plants to eat than to have a cow wandering around your back garden, although possibly not as much fun in the short term

Since the chances of finding someone willing to make garden-space for your errant bovine is limited to the point of extreme unlikelihood, why not instead offer to grow plants, fruits and flowers in their garden?  The garden gets to look better and become productive, you all have a nice warm feeling like you have just eaten the Ready Brek kid and helped save the world and the cow gets to roam freely elsewhere.  All this and the added health benefits thrown in for free.  What are you waiting for - some gun-toting longhorn to rally the sleeping herds?

Another benefit - you can even get to cook and eat the resulting produce.  Some fab recipe books are to be found in our shop.  Please drop by and have a look around.

Thanks for bearing with me, please join GardenLend, if only for the cows …

Ian

With world-wide financial meltdown, dwindling everything, too many people and too little space, along with a planet nearing exhaustion, the timeless expression “surely something must be done” springs to mind.

The “HowStuffWorks” web site has a great article on “Victory Gardens“, along with the thought that “Although the U.S. is engaged in a war today, some Americans are turning to victory gardens for economic, not patriotic, reasons.”  Full article at http://home.howstuffworks.com/victory-garden.htm

The site does have a few suggestions for those without gardens: indoors, container and community gardening; all laudable ideas in their own right, but no thought or mention of sharing existing under-used or neglected gardens.  The resurrection of the (sub)urban sharecropper  is surely due?

Meanwhile, the intrepid reporter Gayle Ritchie of Scotland’s “Sunday Mail” has been out and about with Glasgow’s Guerrilla Gardeners to work on a patch of neglected land at the back of Glasgow’s Royal Infirmary. More at http://www.sundaymail.co.uk/news/editors-choice/2008/09/28/gayle-joins-night-garden-guerrillas-in-latest-eco-craze-78057-20756884/

With one journal having to rekindle a long-forgotten siege mentality reminiscent of the “Dunkirk Spirit” and the other passing off people’s desperation to plant and sow as an “Eco-Craze”, until we take a level-headed practical approach to local sustainable food production, the  future does look rather blighted.

Your thoughts and feedback are - as ever - welcomed.

Comments are naturally also welcomed.

This poll is from the members’ site and can be found at:

http://find.gardenlend.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=9

Results as they come in can be viewed at:

http://find.gardenlend.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=9&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=d&view=viewpoll

Please let us know what you think.

‘Stay of execution’ for allotment holders  

Summary

“ALLOTMENT holders in Lutterworth have been given a reprieve in their fight to keep their De Verdon Road plots. Harborough District Council was due on Monday to decide whether or not to buy land in Moorbarns Lane as a replacement site for the allotments. The district council has an option to buy the Moorbarns Lane site but this is due to expire on September 20.

Cllr Alistair Swatridge, who was elected leader of Harborough District Council at Monday’s meeting, said: “My personal feeling is that council would be wrong to recommend the purchase of land without first obtaining planning permission.

Cllr Swatridge added that there could be a considerable risk to the authority if the De Verdon Road site failed to earn planning permission.  Other town councillors pointed out that Lutterworth Town Council had not paid its rent for the forthcoming year and allotment holders could be ‘kicked off’ the plot at any time.

Town councillors agreed to defer any more decisions on the allotment until their October meeting.”

A meeting that will occur after the option to buy the Moorbarns Lane site has expired.  Does anyone else spot a fait accompli in preparation?  Is this another example of greed over sustainability or just plain old ineptitude?

With the housing market in free-fall, ripping up prized allotments for ill-advised property development does seem short sighted.  What is wrong with buying up the land in Moorbarns Lane for housing, rather than forcing the allotment holders to start their horticultural efforts from scratch? Apart from the A4303, a school and a lorry park?

Your thoughts, as ever, are gratefully appreciated.