Commentary on Sections Duty to provide allotments
389.Section 112(1) imposes a duty on local authorities to take reasonable steps to provide sufficient allotments to keep the list referred to in section 111 at no more than half the authority’s current number of allotments, and to ensure that a person entered on the list does not remain on it for a continuous period of more than five years.
390.Where a local authority does not on the date that section 112 comes into force own or lease allotments, subsection (2) sets out that this duty is triggered when there are 15 people on the local authority waiting list maintained under section 111(1). However, where a local authority already owns or leases allotments, subsection (3) sets out that the duty arises when only one person is on the waiting list.
391.Subsection (4) requires local authorities, when taking reasonable steps to meet the duty in subsection (1), to take into account the desirability to provide allotments in reasonable proximity to where people on the waiting list reside.
392.The Scottish Ministers may by order amend the number of people on the waiting list that triggers the requirement on the local authority to take reasonable steps to provide more allotments, or the maximum proportion of persons on the waiting list as compared to the number of allotments owned or leased by the local authority (subsections (5) and (6)).