Planning and Development Act 2024 Allotments: What Every Irish Council Must Now Do

Why This Legislation Exists

In 2026, Ireland has approximately 2,500 council allotment plots. In the 1940s — when wartime food security was the priority — it had 40,000. That’s a 94% collapse over 80 years, driven not by any policy decision but by passive neglect: land repurposed for housing, roads, and commercial use, with no legal framework compelling councils to replace what was lost.

The result in 2026 is a country where demand for allotments vastly exceeds supply by any measure:

• Dublin’s Raheny allotments have an effective 10-year wait (now closed to new applicants)
• Fingal County Council has closed both Powerstown and Turvey sites to new applications entirely
• South Dublin’s four sites are waitlisted indefinitely
• Cork City runs a 2–3 year wait at €1/m² — so cheap that demand is functionally unlimited
• Denmark, with a broadly similar population, has 50,000 allotments — 20 times Ireland’s current stock

Community Gardens Ireland (CGI), the lead advocacy organisation, has been pushing for legislative action for over a decade. The Planning and Development Act 2024 is the result — and while it stops well short of what CGI asked for, it is the first time allotments have had any meaningful legal standing in Irish planning law.

Exactly What the Act Says — Section 48 Explained

Before the 2024 Act, allotments had no statutory definition in Irish law. There was no planning obligation on councils to provide, reserve, or even consider allotment land. Individual councils could — and many did — simply choose not to act. The 2024 Act changes this by making allotment planning a statutory duty.

The Act also amends the definition of “community garden” for planning purposes, clarifying that community gardens — shared growing spaces not divided into individual plots — fall within the same planning protection framework as allotments. This matters because many Irish growing initiatives (Enniscorthy Community Allotments, for example) are technically hybrid arrangements.

Community Gardens Ireland co-chair Dónal McCormack described the Act as “groundbreaking” in Irish planning terms — accurately, because it represents the first time allotments have triggered statutory planning protections and funding considerations under Irish law.

What Councils Must Do — The Legal Obligations

The Act creates specific obligations. Every one of Ireland’s 31 local authorities must:

Obligation	What it means in practice	Timeframe
Prepare a Sustainable Places and Communities Strategy	A formal council document covering green infrastructure, community spaces, and allotments. Not optional — a statutory requirement.	Within the timelines set by ministerial regulations (not yet published)
Include allotment objectives in that strategy	The SPCS must contain objectives specifically addressing the reservation of land for allotments and community gardens. A strategy that ignores allotments is legally deficient.	Within the SPCS preparation process
Apply the statutory definition of allotment	Any future planning decision involving allotment use must apply the Act’s definition. This provides planning protection for existing allotment sites against other development.	Immediate — already in force
Incorporate allotment objectives into Development Plans	When councils next revise their six-year Development Plan, allotment objectives from the SPCS must be reflected. This is where allotment land actually gets zoned and protected.	At next Development Plan cycle
Consult the public during SPCS preparation	The SPCS process requires statutory public consultation. Growers can formally participate and submit evidence of demand (e.g., waiting list data).	During SPCS development

What the Law Does NOT Require

This is equally important to understand. The Planning and Development Act 2024 is a planning law — it governs how councils must plan, not what they must fund or build. The following are not required by the Act:

What many growers expect	What the law actually says
Councils must provide a certain number of allotments	No minimum number. The duty is to include objectives for allotments, not to deliver specific plots.
Councils must build new allotment sites	No obligation to commission or fund any specific site. “Plan for” is a much weaker obligation than “provide.”
Councils must manage their waiting lists	Nothing in the Act changes how waiting lists are managed, who gets priority, or how long waits can last.
Councils must set a price cap on allotment rents	No pricing obligations created by the Act.
The government must fund new allotment sites	No new funding stream created. Capital expenditure on allotment sites remains entirely at the discretion of councils.
Private landowners must make land available	No compulsory purchase powers created for allotment use. The Act applies to local authority planning, not private land.

The Sustainable Places and Communities Strategy Explained

The Sustainable Places and Communities Strategy (SPCS) is a new statutory plan type introduced by the 2024 Act. It sits within a revised hierarchy of Irish planning documents:

1. National Planning Framework (NPF) — national
2. Regional Spatial and Economic Strategies (RSES) — regional
3. City/County Development Plans — local authority level
4. Sustainable Places and Communities Strategy (new) — thematic, sits alongside the Development Plan
5. Local Area Plans — specific areas

The SPCS is thematic rather than geographic — it covers green infrastructure, community facilities, biodiversity, and sustainable transport across the entire local authority area rather than zone by zone. Allotments fall within the green infrastructure and community facilities components.

Every council must prepare one. Once adopted, the SPCS has legal standing: planning applications and Development Plan revisions must be consistent with it. If a council’s SPCS includes a commitment to reserve land for allotments at a specific location, a planning application to develop that land for another purpose must address that conflict.

This is significant. Before the 2024 Act, there was no mechanism to protect potential allotment land from competing development. The SPCS creates that mechanism — provided the council’s strategy actually names specific sites.

The Missing Guidelines — The Critical Gap

Here is where the legislation runs into its most serious practical problem.

A local authority told to prepare a Sustainable Places and Communities Strategy needs guidance on:

• What constitutes an “adequate” allotment provision objective
• What minimum size standards apply to allotment sites
• How councils should assess and document demand
• What process to use for waiting list management
• How progress should be reported and to whom
• What funding mechanisms are available

These guidelines were supposed to be published by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage in December 2023 — before the Act even came into full effect.

It is now May 2026. They have not been published.

The consequences are predictable: councils that want to move ahead are navigating without a map. Councils that don’t want to move ahead have a convenient excuse to wait. The Department told RTÉ in April 2026 that the guidelines “will be progressed as soon as is practical” — a non-answer that Community Gardens Ireland co-chair Dónal McCormack called out directly: “We met with Government ministers a couple of years ago and we were promised the guidelines would be issued from central Government to the local authorities by December 2023. It hasn’t happened. It’s been three years. It’s incredibly frustrating.”

The Ireland Grows campaign on this site has one primary ask: publish the guidelines. This is not a complex political demand — it is asking the Department to do what it already promised it would do in 2023.

What Councils Are Doing Right Now

The honest picture across 31 councils in mid-2026 is mixed:

Councils that have moved ahead of the law

Kildare County Council is the standout example. Kildare published an Allotment and Community Garden Strategy in 2024 — before the legislation required it — covering current provision mapping, demand assessment, site identification criteria, and funding models. This document is now effectively the template other councils will reference. See the Kildare precedent section below.

Wexford County Council has supported the development of Enniscorthy Community Allotments, which operates 64 plots, 20 raised beds, a polytunnel with 60 growing spaces, a geodesic dome, and serves approximately 250 users — all built since 2021 through a community-led partnership model.

Councils actively managing waiting lists

Cork City, Galway City, Limerick City, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, and several others operate allotment sites with structured (if long) waiting lists. These councils are functioning within the old framework — providing allotments as a discretionary service — rather than yet responding to the new legislative obligations.

Councils that have effectively closed to new applicants

Fingal County Council has closed both Powerstown Road and Turvey Avenue allotments to new applicants, citing demand that outstrips any realistic supply expansion. Dublin City Council’s Raheny site operates a de facto closed list. South Dublin County Council’s four sites are all waitlisted indefinitely.

Councils with no provision

Approximately half of Ireland’s 31 local authorities have no council-run allotment sites whatsoever. The new legislation obligates them to plan for provision — but without published guidelines and without a funding mechanism, most are unlikely to act quickly.

See the full council-by-council tracker for current waiting list data.

The Kildare Precedent — What Good Looks Like

Kildare County Council’s Allotment and Community Garden Strategy 2024 is the most advanced example of what the Planning and Development Act 2024 is asking all councils to produce. Its structure provides a useful template for what growers should demand from their own councils:

Strategy component	What Kildare covered
Current provision mapping	Audit of all existing allotment and community garden sites in the county, including private and community-led provision — not just council-run sites
Demand assessment	Current waiting list data + survey of latent demand (people who haven’t applied but want a plot)
Site identification criteria	Criteria for identifying suitable land: minimum size, water access, soil quality, proximity to population, access and transport
Funding models	Assessment of different delivery models: council-run (capital-intensive), community-led (partnership), private (plot-share style). Different funding implications for each.
Governance models	Council-run vs community-led vs public-private — with Enniscorthy cited as an example of a successful community-led model
Targets and timelines	Specific plot-number targets and years, not vague commitments

If your council doesn’t have a document at least approaching this standard, the 2024 Act gives you grounds to ask why — and to formally demand one through the SPCS public consultation process.

Your Rights as a Grower Under the New Law

The Planning and Development Act 2024 gives growers new procedural rights that didn’t exist before:

Right to participate in SPCS public consultation

When your council prepares its Sustainable Places and Communities Strategy, it must hold a public consultation. You have a legal right to make a written submission. This is the most powerful lever the law creates for ordinary growers — a formal mechanism to put documented waiting-list data in front of council planners and have it recorded.

What a strong submission includes:

• Your personal wait time on the council’s existing waiting list (if applicable)
• References to the national waiting list data showing your county’s position
• The specific duty under Section 48 to include allotment objectives
• A request that the strategy name specific sites for allotment reservation
• Reference to Kildare’s strategy as a model

Right to challenge a deficient SPCS

If a council produces a Sustainable Places and Communities Strategy that fails to include allotment objectives, that strategy is legally deficient under the Act. A formal objection can be lodged, and in serious cases, the matter can be referred to An Bord Pleanála. Community Gardens Ireland has the expertise to support such challenges.

Right to use the definition in planning objections

Now that allotments have a statutory definition and planning protection, any planning application that would develop land identified for allotment use must address that conflict in its planning application. Local growers can object on grounds of conflict with allotment land designation.

How to Pressure Your Council — With Template

The most effective immediate action most growers can take is a direct written communication to their local councillors. The Ireland Grows campaign has a councillor email tool that generates a pre-written email tailored to your county — but here is the legal framework behind those letters:

1. Ask about the SPCS timeline. Ask your council when it expects to publish a draft Sustainable Places and Communities Strategy for public consultation. If they don’t know, that’s an answer — they haven’t started.
2. Ask about the allotment audit. Ask whether the council has conducted an audit of current allotment provision (including community gardens and private sites) as a baseline for the strategy. This is a fundamental precondition of a credible strategy.
3. Ask about land identification. Ask whether the council has identified any specific sites that might be reserved for allotment use under the SPCS. Vague strategies with no named sites produce no plots.
4. Reference the waiting list data. Send your councillor the homegrown.ie allotment tracker link showing your county’s current wait times. This makes the abstract concrete.
5. Ask about the missing guidelines. Ask your councillor to contact the Minister for Housing to demand the publication of the overdue national allotment guidelines. These guidelines are what councils are waiting for — a local councillor asking for them is more politically effective than a petition, because councillors have direct access to TDs.

Use the councillor email generator to send this now — it takes two minutes.

Realistic Timeline to New Plots

Even in an optimistic scenario where the government publishes the overdue guidelines this year and councils respond quickly, the timeline from legislation to new plots is long:

Stage	Optimistic timeline	Realistic timeline
National guidelines published	Late 2026	2027
Councils begin SPCS development	Late 2026	2027–2028
SPCS public consultation	2027	2028
SPCS adopted	2027–2028	2029
Land identified and planning permission	2028–2029	2029–2030
Site commissioning (fencing, water, layout)	2029	2030–2031
First new plots available	2030	2031–2032

Community Gardens Ireland’s target of 10,000 allotments by 2030 is technically possible in an optimistic scenario — but it requires the guidelines to be published now, councils to move at unprecedented speed, and capital funding to materialise from somewhere.

For anyone who wants to grow in the next 1–3 years, the council allotment system — even with the new legislation — is not a realistic route. The plot-share marketplace exists precisely for this reason: available plots are listed here, with no waiting list and no dependency on government timelines.

Frequently Asked Questions