Kitchen Garden Forum

Hi

Did any of you read the article in the papers this morning about a local Council who are insisting that their plotholders take out PL (Public Liability) cover to the tune of five million pounds...cost per annum is around £374. 00...I am not sure whether that cost was for each individual plotholder (it read that way to me) or it was a collective cost for the site as a whole

I asked our council about this a few years ago and was assured that they carried adequate insurance for all their sites.

I was wondering if this particular council is either trying to shift some reponsibility or recover some of their costs?

In my nearest town, the householders of two of the streets open their gardens to the public on alternative years to raise money for charity. Last summer it was East Castle Street's turn (mostly big Georgian houses with walled gardens and stunning views) and this year it's St Mary's Street (mostly terraced cottages with long, thin gardens). They're always splendid events, with the streets closed to traffic, jazz bands playing, refreshments, plant stalls, etc.

This year the Council announced that they would have to take out their own public liability insurance as the County would no longer cover it on their insurance. As the cost of the policy for one day would be several thousands of pounds, there would be no point in organising it as the money raised would only be sufficient to pay for the insurance.

After much heated debate, the Council has now agreed to include it on their policy for this year, but we don't know whether that's a one off or longer term.

We lease our site from the council and are a self managed association. We are currently in the process of taking out PL insurance for our members. To do this we are joining NSALG as we can then insure through their scheme which is much cheaper than going direct to an insurance company and it works out at around £3 per person. Obviously this could mount up on a very big site, but it is per head and we've told all our members that they will have a rent increase to cover this, starting in the autumn; no one has objected.

Personally I think this is pretty good value for money and in todays litigious society, well worth doing.

We also run our own site and are members of NSALG, we have made the point of showing the NSALG fee separate to the annual rent to emphasise that all members must belong to that association for site insurance purposes. We have also found the Insurance from NSALG is very competitive, but more importantly geared towards allotments. Shallotman