Mr. D?nal McCormack:

I might comment on what "permanent" means. When we carried out our survey, we examined whether gardens or allotments had a rolling licence, and many of them had an 11-month or two-year licence, or something along those lines. The issue relates to the fact very few have longer leases, and one of the larger grants that can be applied for – I am not sure whether it is LEADER funding or the urban regeneration and development fund - requires a seven-year lease to be in place before it can be applied for.

There are larger funding models that gardens cannot apply for because they have not been around for long enough.