From Bob Hogge.
I WAS just going to put pen to paper to congratulate President Obama for having the foresight to dig an allotment on the White House lawn when I read that Planning has turned down an application to create 60 allotments here in Jersey.

It strikes me as odd that a department with planning and environment in its title can show such lack of foresight. Surely instead of turning down this application, they should be encouraging applications from across the Island.

I don’t know whether it is still the case, but it used to be the law in the UK that if enough people applied to their local council for allotments, they were obliged to provide them. Sadly, there is no such provision here.

If the forecasted future becomes a reality, it doesn’t take a planner to realise that importing the majority of our food is going to become increasingly difficult and expensive and that the quicker we grow our own, the better.

Perhaps we should be considering our flower beds a luxury and start planting beans and peas among the tulips and delphiniums and apples and pears instead of ornamental trees. Planners, though, are more concerned about the aesthetics of sheds and car parking than the ethics of encouraging a sustainable future.

So congratulations, Mister President, for digging for the future and not planning against it.
Claremont House,
Tower Road,
St Helier.