Cemented locks and deflated diggers: the war over privately run allotments

With waits for council plots in England decades-long, Roots is renting out green space – but some communities are digging in

When police arrived at the field outside Bristol in October 2023, two old cars, wheels removed, were blockading the gates. Protesters had hauled them across the entrance to stop developers building on the slice of north Somerset green belt. The threat was not housing or industry, but a company building vegetable patches.

Roots builds privatised allotments to give city dwelling customers a place to grow food. It was co-founded in 2021 by Christian Samuel, Ed Morrison and William Gay, who were frustrated by a 28-year waiting list for a plot in their area of Streatham, south London. “We thought: ‘This is crazy’,” says Samuel, 32. “‘Why don’t we just build our own?’”

The idea was a runaway success. Roots now has 20 sites from London to Leeds, and nearly 5,000 customers. Last October the founders announced a £6m fundraise. Backers included Terry Leahy, the former Tesco chief executive and Mark Selby, co-founder of Wahaca restaurants. There are early plans for a site in Austin, Texas – Roots’ first abroad.

The startup leases farmland and turns it into plots that it rents out on subscription. Prices range from £9.99 to £49.99 a month for a patch of up to 108 sq metres. One adviser describes it as “WeWork for allotments”, a fresh air and wellies version of the coworking office space trend.

The appeal is obvious. More than 170,000 people are thought to be sitting on council allotment waiting lists across the country. “For many people it is not about growing the food, it’s the mental health and the wellbeing side of being outside,” says Samuel. “They see it as a place to escape. And there’s clearly a supply and demand gap here.”

Not everybody sees it that way. What started as a local protest in Bristol has turned into a nationwide opposition campaign. A Facebook group, Roots Allotments uncovered, has attracted more than 1,700 members. Opponents accuse the company of an aggressive expansion strategy, developing land first and applying for planning permission later – and only when councils force them to.

Simon Talbot-Ponsonby, 73, lives next to the Bristol site – a rented farmers’ field bordering Leigh Woods nature reserve – and was at the October 2023 standoff. He is chair of the nearby Abbots Leigh parish council, has been a regular presence at protests and accuses the founders of “trashing” the countryside.

Truckloads of compost were dumped across formerly grazed meadows, he says, with much of the remaining grass churned up and a shipping container dropped in the middle as a tool shed. An 80-space compacted stone car park was built to serve the 700 plots. “They have a total disregard for the feelings of local people,” he says.

Resistance has also sprung up elsewhere. In Ecclesfield, near Sheffield, the council denied planning permission in December, seven months after diggers rolled in and began removing hedgerows (the company has appealed against the decision). In West Sussex, there was outcry when Roots started work on protected land within the South Downs national park.

Nor are some opponents averse to some old-fashioned sabotage. In Bristol, protesters poured cement into the locks so the gates couldn’t be opened. One night in early 2024, someone deflated the tyres on the Roots diggers – then filled the valves with superglue for good measure.

The old cars from the October blockade kept reappearing, too. Roots installed lockable bollards in the road to keep them out, but when staff returned a week later, the vehicles had mysteriously appeared on the other side. On another occasion someone sowed grass seed on a fresh delivery of compost. “It’s amazing how quickly it turns green,” says Talbot-Ponsonby.

“Residents were so frustrated by the fact that they were going ahead without permission,” Talbot-Ponsonby says, clarifying that he did not take part in the acts of “minor vandalism”. He adds: “We’re all law-abiding citizens, but when people are frustrated they do things.”

The founders see themselves as victims of a zealous nimby campaign. Samuel calls them “haters” and recounts an incident when somebody recognised him at Bath Spa railway station and slapped him on the back of the head. He points to footage of people obstructing Roots’ Bristol site during a volunteer tree-planting day. “Even when we were planting trees we had to call the police,” he says “They’re relentless.”

He insists that allotments are agriculture and do not need planning permission on greenbelt land, citing permitted development rules. Opponents say the scale – with shipping containers, irrigation systems and hundreds of plots – makes them commercial developments that need approval.

Charlotte Bovill, a Roots customer in south Croydon, says there are “bigger problems in the world” than allotments being built on the green belt. The 34-year-old probation officer, who works with people convicted of violent crimes daily, says her patch is a source of “bliss and escapism”.

Council waiting lists are an “absolute nightmare”, Bovill continues, and many people living in cities do not have gardens to store tools or space for composting, both of which Roots provides. “The satisfaction of being able to nurture and grow something is a lot more rewarding than most things in everyday life.”

Nonetheless, trouble seems to follow the startup around. Its name on Companies House, Allotta Futureland, has raised suspicions among opponents that it could be a front to eventually develop houses, which Samuel strongly denies. His case was not helped when a shipping container at a Roots site in Bath was converted into a holiday let in 2024, complete with outdoor decking and a hot tub. It was later removed.

The environmental campaigner Chris Packham has even gone after them. “Increasing access to green spaces is a must – and allotments are a great way to do that,” he wrote of the Bristol site in 2024. “But when you’re a venture capital-backed firm developing on species rich grassland, with breeding skylarks … you’re in the wrong Roots Allotments.”

Packham’s criticism hints at the fundamental tension around Roots’ model. Allotments have long been viewed as a public good, run by councils, rather than as a commercial opportunity for fast-growing startups.

When Roots tried to lease council-owned land in Brighton three years ago, Mark Carroll, chair the city’s allotment federation, told a local newspaper: “Sadly, this follows a pattern of public services with huge waiting lists becoming run down and the private sector stepping in to offer an alternative to those who can afford it.”

Roots’ prices reinforce those claims. A full size plot of 108 sq metres will set you back just under £550 a year, where many councils charge less than £100 for a similar sized patch.

While not yet profitable, Allota Futureland had assets of £1.7m in 2024, when it last filed accounts, more than treble the previous year. JamJar Investments, the venture capital firm founded by the creators of Innocent smoothies, holds a 13% stake, alongside Redbus Ventures, a tech investment firm, and Leahy and Selby’s smaller holdings.

Samuel admits he can “see the argument on both sides” but that ideas cost money. “It’s not cheap to do this and I don’t think the fact that we’ve had investment should really matter. We are doing something good with the money.”

Crucially, however, Roots sites are available, while land set aside for council allotments has fallen by about 65% since the 1950s across England. Since Labour took office in 2024, the government has approved the sale of eight more allotment sites to help fund new housing. “We are adding to supply,” says Samuel.

And the company shows no sign of slowing down. Another fundraise is planned in the coming months, which will help pay for more dramatic expansion. As many as 20 more sites are due to open this year, and by 2033, Roots hopes to have 1,000 sites worldwide and 250,000 customers.

Meanwhile, back in Bristol, Roots was finally granted planning permission in summer 2025, but now faces another problem: the water has been shut off. Bristol Water cut the supply last autumn after finding Roots had simply tapped into the farmer’s cattle trough pipe. The company is now applying for a commercial connection.

“It’s just another example of them not following the rules,” says Talbot-Ponsonby. “That’s the way they work.”

Despite the sabotage, planning battles and now the water shutoff, Samuel remains unbowed. “We hear every day that thousands of people want these things, and we’re not planning on stopping,” he says. “All this over growing a bunch of aubergines.”