Dobbies garden centres are looking to create allotments at some of their garden centres, including one in Staffordshire, and start selling hens and chicken coops to customers.

Britons struggling to make ends meet in the grip of the recession have embraced the “Good Life” – following in the footsteps of the 1970′ sitcom couple who grew their own food and kept chickens and goats in their back garden.

Tesco is running trials of selling chicken coops and poultry through its chain of Dobbies Garden Centres, and has applied for planning permission to create allotments on land next to its store in Southport, Merseyside.

If the local council gives the plan the green light the allotments will be rented out from next spring.

Although there are currently no similar plans for the Dobbies centre at Gailey, near Wolverhampton, the company has applied for permission to set up allotments at its Atherstone garden centre, near Lichfield, where it is already selling chickens.

A spokesman said: “As well as Southport we have also applied for planning permission for allotments at Atherstone and we are reviewing our current portfolio of stores to see where else we can accommodate this concept.”

Waiting lists for allotments have grown dramatically over recent years – rising to more than 100,000 – as people turned towards growing food at home, but this has accelerated since the start of the credit crunch last year.

The National Trust has got involved with the aim of creating thousands more allotments over the next three years, and for Tesco to get in on the act suggests the bosses at the country’s biggest supermarket business believe growing-your-own is a long term trend.

Chord

Tesco plans to sell allotment ‘starter-kits’ along with renting out the allotments at Southport, giving customers all the products they should need to turn their patch of ground into a family larder.

Susan MacDonald, a Dobbies director, said: “While it’s probably a step too far to think that consumers will be following the example of Tom and Barbara Good (the lead characters in The Good Life) and turn their back gardens into farms, keeping chickens seems to be striking a chord with some of our customers.

“We have a range of ‘grow your own produce’ products which is very successful. We are listening to customer feedback on our trial to find out if ‘growing your own eggs’ could be the next step.”

Dobbies started supplying fresh eggs at one store in August last year, but now also offers Isa Brown chicks and various breeds of egg-laying hens at its Atherstone store and three other Dobbies branches nationwide. It sells chicken coops at 17 stores.

Since then chicken coops have become one of the company’s biggest sellers.