Kitchen Garden Forum

What do you believe is the best way of interfacing with your local Council if you are an allotment? Where I live, the Council wanted to wash its hands of the management of allotments and therefore came up with a number of ways of getting plot holders to take direct responsibility for management. One site is a 10-year leasehold, where the Council has absolutely no involvement whatsoever in the managment process. Another site is 'Self-managed', albeit all plot holders have to have tenancy agreements, which set out how the plot is to be kept and how plot holders should behave; rules, in theory, are enforced by a three-person committee. My latest plot is also on a self-managed site, whereby one person is in charge. He is paid an annual rent of £20.00 by each plot holder, from which water bills are paid and somebody is chucked a bit of money to keep the paths mowed.
The leasehold site seems to work best, with rules enforced. The second site mentioned is a muddled fudge, with the Council backing the committee, just so long as no tough decisions need making involving participation by said Council! I don't know how well the third site works, since I have only been there for a couple of weeks. However, we are one of two adjacent sites and we share a water bill. This has to be divied up between the two sites and recently there has been a dispute over who should pay what, so the Council has now stepped in to take charge of the water bills.
I know some of you other allotment holders have much more direct input from your Councils. But is there one preferred way of site management out there that seems to work? Are there any ways that DON'T work?

Hi Barry

Our site is operated by the local Council...they wanted us to take on the self manage status a year or so ago and at a meeting it was turned down flat with a large majority (mainly the older tenants)voting against.
It is viewed by the majority of tenants as a 'them and us situation' to the point they will vote against any proposals put by the Council as a matter of course.

The Council has very limited finance to invest in the site and it ticks over...we don't have toilet facilities and we hardly have a fence but we do have water.

Sites that I know of who are self managed have access to significant grant funding and seem to run pretty well.

We're a self managed association and it works brilliantly; which incidentally is also the opinion of our local Council.

We have a committee of 7 for 2 sites (around 100 plots). We have a lease from the Council and pay them annual rent. We set the rents for the plotholders who pay to their relevant letting secretary. We have rules laid down by the Council which we use, plus a few of our own choosing, and apply to the Association. We have water but are metered which we pay. This year, after I asked them nicely the Council have provided us with skips along with all the Council sites, which is exceedingly generous of them.

It works for us.