Kitchen Garden Forum

Well if the local paper is correct the council is going to spend £1/2 million on a new site 5 miles away - as the crow flies obviously! Well posh -parkland of the local manor house if you mind!

'As the crow flies' was relevant, it is near a wee village, accessed by wee lanes. The nearest other village a couple of miles away has a bus service (kind of if you count 3 a day a service), there is a dual carriage way to negotiate & the lanes make the journey a wee bit longer. But hey it's in the same county this time!

It would appear the locals are not happy either - £1/2 mill to spend on 4 hectares to re-locate us? What? They are buying more land - what ever for? Yep guess where the next lot of housing is going after our site? Maybe we'll be re-located again then? (I've heard the soil is rubbish but haven't personally visited, but will over the weekend).

Fortunately the locals representative is very articulate - I'm extending the olive branch! (Literally if necessary)! £1/2 million!! Wouldn't cost that much to loose a few houses on our site & fence us off - as per the public consultation result!

Isn't politics grand?

Westi

I don't know why they can't leave you where you are and put the houses elsewhere. Don't these people know anything about agriculture and how long it takes to get food growing land into good cultivational condition.

I hope your group continue to try and stand your ground.

"Isn't politics grand? " Humph! Well we live under a Heathrow flight path so you can imagine how we feel about the thought of a third runway. What was the current government's commitment about that in 2010? " Absolutely Not".

At the end of the year we will all see exactly how poorly a politician's word is his bond.

Best of luck westi , but i would hazard a guess all the promises vanish into the either, and when push comes to shove there will be no money available

Had a chat with a committee member today. It would appear the council bought 7 hectares & they went out to see it. It is way down a bridle path out of the way completely. Apparently the council did a survey which showed over 95% of the growers drive their car so wouldn't matter on the location. Hmm lets see - did they miss all the bikes or plot gates open with nothing in front with wheels?

They also want to double the size of the plot, as we've already got nearly 200 now that is a wee bit ambitious as we have vacant plots as is. However they think they can fill them as the local population will want them? Doh! They could have one with us if they wanted & anyway the new location is so close to the county border only one small village nearby is in Dorset.

But the committee rejected it anyway without these obvious flaws. There is only about 1 - 2 inches of topsoil on top of rock. Apparently the council offered to bring in topsoil- they don't really get the growing game. Anyway they are still going to buy the site - hmm what for we wonder?

Westi