Did your allotment help you during the lockdowns?

Did you have access to growing space in Brighton and Hove during the COVID -19 pandemic in 2020?

Would you be willing to talk to academic researchers from the University of Sussex about how your access to growing space affected your experiences and your resilience?

We are interested in how different ways of owning and managing growing spaces have influenced people’s experiences. We will ask interview participants about whether having access to a growing space has had an impact on their resilience.

Our questions will focus on connection with nature, connection with other people, security, food supply and agency.

We are seeking six participants for interview. Interviews will last up to one hour each. We are particularly keen to talk to anyone who has had used either a public-access community garden, or an individual plot in a communal space.

The research is being carried out by researchers in the School of Law, Politics and Sociology at the University of Sussex and is funded by the University’s Evidence-based Policy Fund.

If you might be willing to participate and would like to hear more about the project, please contact the researchers, Dr Bonnie Holligan, Dr Helena Howe and Clare Ferguson at