IN-PERSON London. Section A

Abstract

The fact that humanity is faced with various disasters and epidemics causes profound changes in society and social life. Societies need to look for more collaborative, sustainable, and adaptable solutions to continue their existence. Sustainability is defined by Wahl and Baxter (2008) as a process that involves different communities in making flexible and adaptable design decisions at local, regional, and global scales (Wahl and Baxter, 2008, p. 72). During the Covid period, local design decisions were observed in different formats in the context of social change. Lock down and access to open spaces pushed people to seek solutions. One of the solutions discovered by local people was access to allotments in the UK. According to the National Society of Allotment and Leisure Gardeners (NSALG), 40% of English councils responding to a survey reported a “significant increase” in applications to join waiting lists in April (Smithers, 2020). This shows that during the Covid period, people turned to the municipality to administer allocations to support their quality of life and reduce the stress of the epidemic. In this paper, while discussing how green areas can be made more accessible to society and how these areas can benefit social change in a sustainable context, the contribution of allocations to social life will also be investigated.