Topic: £25/pole rent

[tonybloke]

Insert Quote
Seems someone has taken over your avatar UW.

I think the avatar they are using now is an image of some loser who blew his head off? ;)

[Unwashed]

Does the freedom of information mean you can require the council to give details of precisely what the admin covers?

If they have recorded that level of detail anywhere then yes, FoI gives anyone a right to see it.

[vegwise]

Hi Unwashed,

How many people out of the plots at your site are in your association, if you speak for the vast majority they will be more willing to listen to you.

How many other tenants are in an association out of the total number for all the other sites in your area, will they join in ?

Vegwise

[Unwashed]

Here's a graphic of the cost of a ten pole plot in boroughs like Newbury.

Newbury Town Councillors refuse to address the issue.  They do, however, visit A4A *waves*.

Allotment rents up 47%, precept up 7%, some of the most expensive council plots in the country, council administration running at £73/plot, an allotment society that's asking to be allowed to help.

It's frustrating, but it appears to be very difficult to hold them to account.

Anywho, I've had a look at my tenancy agreement.  It says:

The rent will be revisable every year.

So I've revised it.  I've served notice on the council that my rent next year will be £1. and I'll give the other £46.20 that I feel I should be charged to Thrive.

[Squash64]

Anywho, I've had a look at my tenancy agreement.  It says:

The rent will be revisable every year.

So I've revised it.  I've served notice on the council that my rent next year will be £1. and I'll give the other £46.20 that I feel I should be charged to Thrive.

That's brilliant!  Do let us know if you get a reply.

[Unwashed]

Err, yes, I might need to borrow a bit of allotment too. :'(

[Tee Gee]

Just received the bill for this year and it is £19-80 for a 200 sq metre plot.

Smaller plots are pro-rata and pensioners (like me ) get theirs for half price.

What we get for this is a Communal hut, Communal 40ft x 15 poly-tunnel ( only 5 of us use it!) a key to the gate, and a water stand pipe per two/three  plots.

[Unwashed]

That's a sweet deasl TeeGee.

My local councillors continue to ignore my request for dialogue, but I see they've popped in again for a nosey about so:

Tenants at another of the Newbury allotment sites have been complaining that the council officers park their cars in the allotment car park.  It's a fair point.  A season ticket to park in Newbury costs £900 and there's five (I think) officers that park daily at the allotments.  The Council raised an extra £5.9k with a 47% increase in our rents, so here's an idea - charge the officers £900 a piece to park in the allotments - that would raise £4.5k

[vegwise]

Hi Unwashed,

You appear to be good with facts and figures about your council.

However are these figures and facts correct,

1)You only have 32 members out of 140 on your site?
2)You only have 32 members out of possible 330 – 450 other tenants?
3)Are you speaking on behalf of your 35 members or yourself? :'(


Tenants at another of the Newbury allotment sites have been complaining that the council officers park their cars in the allotment car park.  It's a fair point.  A season ticket to park in Newbury costs £900 and there's five (I think) officers that park daily at the allotments.  The Council raised an extra £5.9k with a 47% increase in our rents, so here's an idea - charge the officers or unwashed £900 a piece to park in the allotments / car park - that would raise £4.5k / £900-00 :(


4)Where you turned down by the council for free/cheap parking in a car park? ;)

I won't hold my breath for a reply?

VW

[Unwashed]

My council are going to discuss two issues on Monday night.

8. Question Raised at Full Council by Julian Cabell (WCAS)
 
To discuss the question raised at Council by WCAS member Julian Cabell on 18 January 2010 and deferred to Community Services Committee:
 
“For every allotment plot the Council spend £79 on administration; that's £44k of the £50k subsidy.  Birmingham City Council administers 114 sites (10 times the plots that Newbury has) with the same number of staff that Newbury administers its six sites.  For comparison commercial out-sourced administration costs £7 per plot, and self-managed sites administer their plots for around £2 per plot, and self-management can slash the maintenance budget also.  Newbury's allotmenteers will not be saddled with this Council's inefficiency and self-management is the answer.
 
Mr Mayor, we have lobbied for two years for action and nothing has happened - will you now commit a minimum of four Councillors to meet with us urgently to seriously investigate the benefits of both self-management and outsourcing to realise significant cost savings for the council?”

and

11. Wash Common Allotment Society 
 
Officers and Councillors have been in discussion with the reformed Wash Common Allotment Society.  The Society has asked Council to consider the following Recognition Agreement:
 
“Preamble: The Council recognise the Wash Common Allotment Society as the democratic, representative site association at Wash Common Allotments.  The Council support the role of the Society in empowering the community of allotmenteers at Wash Common and will work in partnership with the Society to deliver the Council’s Local Agenda 21 and Best Value policy commitments.
 
The Council will:
1. Give serious consideration to the Society’s requests. Protocol: The Society will make an initial request to the Services Manager who may decide the request or else escalate it either to the Chief Executive Officer or Community Services Committee for decision.  The Services Manager and Chair of the Community Services Committee will support the Society where necessary in refining the request and preparing any supporting documentation.  The Society will always be pleased to work with any Councillor that takes an interest, and this will be arranged through the Services Manager.
2. Consult the site through the Society on matters that may affect members.
3. Inform the Society in good time of proposed changes to the site, and involve the Society in decisions that may affect the site”.
 
The constitution of the society can be found here.
 
Officers support the constitution, and to continue the positive relationship, recommend that the Recognition Agreement is adopted.

The Council was not pleased when we formed the Society and in two and a half years they have not warmed to the idea that we have a legitimate right to organise, and a legitimate right to criticise them and hold them to account.  I hadn't thought to ask for self-management initially, but I'm convinced now that the Council will never play nice and that the only way to involve the allotmenteers and improve the site is through self-management.  Of course, £50k is quite a gravy-train for the Council and there's way too much self-interest to ever let this happen.  Whatever the result on Monday, nothing will have changed in 12 months time.

[1066]

I would have thought that saving money, when budgets are VERY tight would help them make their minds up!  What are your local press saying - have you got them involved?

[Unwashed]

There's no incentive for the Council to save money.  If they need more they just put the precept up - it went up 7% this year.  Newbury is affluent so a lot of tenants really aren't bothered if the rents go up, and they're even less bothered about the folk who can't afford the increase.  This is from the council letter that went round with the bill:

We do hope you continue to enjoy and benefit from your allotment.  If you wish, you do have the option to terminate your tenancy from 31 March 2010, without notice, but we sincerely hope that you don’t feel that is necessary.

ie, if you can't afford it, tough!

The local paper has published our letter protesting the rent increase and asking the council to talk to us but it's not really a campaigning paper.

[Old Central]

Kick the council where it hurts, in the ballot box. Sadly it is often the only way to be heard. Bear in mind that it is easier to campaign to stop something than it is to implement something new.

OC

[kt.]

Early last year, possibly a bit before on here, there was a link to an an article of a MP who is a budding allotmenteer who supports and fights for everything to do with allotments for his constituency and the nation.  If you can find this link I am sure he will get on side with you.  (Best do it quick in case he is a labour MP;  he may not have his seat after May..... 8))

[Unwashed]

The Council unanimously refused both to recognize the Society and to meet with us to discuss self-management.  With a disturbing amount of conviction they said that while I had anything to do with the Society there would be no recognition because I had "slagged them off" in the press and on the Society web site.  Everything I've said is here if you're interested.

That graph of rents in neighbouring boroughs seems to have pushed them over the edge because they keep refering to it as misinformation but they refuse to say what's not accurate about it.

So much for freedom of speach and freedom of association.

Chair of the Council Committee, Cllr Arthur Johnson is a member of A4A so perhaps you can all invite him to address the issues, because he refuses to talk to me.  See if he'll tell you why the committee voted for a 47% increase in rent to make Newbury one of the most expensive council sites in the country without any of them asking what the going rate was, or how the money was being spent, because he refused to answer me.

[Digeroo]

Have you asked for more information about what the money spent on allotments is actually being spent on.  After all if they have no information about the costs of running the allotment they should have. 

According to their website the net cost of allotments in 2007 was £8192.  Unfortunately that is that last date online perhaps they have later details in library. 

[Unwashed]

They publish more current accounts attached to the agenda of the Policy and Resources Committee, but that only details the direct costs, the indirect costs are not available anywhere I can find.  However, they published some service costs with last year's council tax bill and from that I worked out the service cost was £63k, and knowing the direct costs were £22k I could infer that the admin costs were £41k, and the council have confirmed that.  It's difficult to understand where that money goes and they refuse to explain.  Rents currently generates £12.5k

I think what's made them so angry with me is that ordinarily no one would have gone ferriting about and discovered the service cost, and certainly no one would have dared to criticise them publicly for it.

It was never our intention to embarrass the council, but when we were told of the plans for a £25 rate and what we believe to be an unlawful increase for current tenants we wrote to the council privately to tell them of our concerns, but the councillors ignored us.  We told them we'd have no option but to go to Trading Standards and this just angered them more - we'd been warned previously that the councillors wouldn't cooperate with us if we made that complaint.  So we've complained to Trading Standards and we wrote to the local paper to complain about the unjustifiable increase in rents on the basis that their admin costs were out of control, especially as we'd been asking for a couple of years to be allowed to get involved in the maintenance and the council had refused to consider it.

[Unwashed]

Funily enough the Leader of the Council, Ivor Sheldon, is not so bullish in the paper today about why he proposed that the council refuse to recognise our allotment society.  At the council meeting he was very clear:  "because I had slagged off the council in the press and on the web site", but he doesn't mention that today, he only talks about the Society's Aims and Objects being unacceptable.  That's kind of odd, because in the late Autumn we had a meeting with the council where they considered our Constitution and they only asked us to change one single word, which we were happy to do to accomodate them.  But now the Constitution is unacceptable?

These are our Aims and Objects.  What do you think?

2. Objects.
a) To promote the interests of members in their gardening activities and to take joint action for the benefit and protection of members.
b) To promote allotment gardening, and the sharing of knowledge about gardening and allotment-management in order to promote success in our allotmenteering.

3. Aims.
a) To establish and maintain a democratically elected and representative Committee of Management to facilitate and develop the Objects.
b) To encourage the council to cooperate enthusiastically and openly with the Society to realize fair and reasonable requests of the Society.
c) To encourage the council to consult the site through the Society on all matters that may affect members and to give serious, fair and honest consideration to the opinion of the Society.
d) To encourage the council to inform the Society in good time of any proposed changes to the site and involve the Society in decisions that may affect the site.
e) To encourage the council to respect our members' ownership of their individual plots, and their notional ownership of the site as a whole, and to encourage the council to treat members fairly and equally.
f) To sell seeds, fertilizers, tools and other horticultural equipment to members, and to arrange lectures, film shows, demonstrations, competitions and other social events, by ourselves and in cooperation with other organisations.
g) To foster community on site, and foster cooperation between sites and other organisation.

[Robert_Brenchley]

Get that info in the local rag and embarass them!

[Squash64]

This is from our constitution:-

Objectives

1. To promote the interests of all members in their gardening activities, including co-operating with other gardening associations in matters of mutual interest.

2. To maintain and improve facilities which will help Members to pursue these activities.

3. To conduct negotiations with the local authority on all matters relating to the allotments

4. To take action to protect members and their plots against damage, trespass and theft

5. To maintain and improve the condition of the site as a whole and to encourage and educate others to do the same.

As you can see, the local authority is only mentioned once, in 3.

I wonder if you might have frightened your council by clearly setting out your expections of them?
 
I'm not saying that what you expect is wrong, it isn't, but when it's spelt out like that you might be giving them more things to object to. 

This is just my opinion, and is coloured by the fact that we have not had any problems with our council.  I wouldn't like to be living in your council area.  :(