Topic: Allotment association

[monkey puzzle]

It's been suggested that it would be an advantage for our site to have an Allotment Association.  Views please.   :-\

[Derek]

How do you get the most apathetic bunch of gardeners in Christendom to even consider a committee?

They all moan like hell about the Council and the lack of amenities but mention an Association and you would think the mafia were trying to move in.

Wardy...I envy you ..the site you are on seems to be made up of a well civilised bunch of individuals.

Derek

[djbrenton]

One factor you have to take into account when deciding whether to form an Association or not are the finances. Associations generally have 75% of the rents remitted to them to manage the site. In our case, with 135 gardens @ £30, that comes to quite a lot of money we have to spend on maintenance etc. With small sites it can be that the council spend more on maintenance than you'd have with the remit. You need to weigh up what the council do for you ( if anything ) and whether you'd be better off with the money. Most Associations run well with just two or three keen committee members and a few others who like to have a say. Find one person willing to be Secretary and the rest will fall into place.

[monkey puzzle]

Interesting feedback, thanks.  I'm told that Allotment Authorities  take more notice of lottie assocs. than of individuals.  Vandalism is escalating on our site but Council apathetic.  No fences, no gate, adjacent public footpath.  What chance do we stand!

Several plotholders have given up because of vandalism, such a shame.   

[vee]

Our site was more or less totally derelict at the beginning of last year, but lots of new people took plots and we got together to meet and discuss ways of getting the council to improve things such as security. The council of course has no money so we formed an association so that we could get a bank account and apply for grants. The Allotment Regeneration Initiative is good for sample documents such as a model constitution, advice etc. We now deal with the council as a group and got a grant (not from the council) to fence individual plots for better security and to buy communal equipment such as a brushcutter etc. It has been a long hard slog but we all know each other well by now and feel we have made a difference. Our biggest problem is that we are 'managed' by the council and so we cannot evict the people who let their plots become derelict so that is still an ongoing problem. I have heard that there are signs that more and more sites are becoming self-governing but our site is still too under-funded for us to take that route yet.
Good luck with starting an association it's well worth doing, but as a first step  why not start with just a get-together as it sounds less intimidating? Your local allotment Federation may be able to help as well.

[djbrenton]

Hi Vee
what do you mean when you say your site is 'underfunded'? What's the rental income? and what needs spending to keep the site open (as opposed to improved which doesn't happen much when council run ). Tbh if we weren't making vast improvements we wouldn't have much to spend money on. The only difference with an association is that general site maintenance work has to come out of the rents rather than being done by the council.

[vee]

At the moment all we have for facilities is water. We have persuaded the council to improve the main path/car park so we can get to the edge of plots and they have been helpful in giving manure. The rents are paid to the council and are probably only about £500pa so we want to get as much as we can from the council in improvements before we self manage. With regard to evictions they have taken photos of the worst plots and then ring them up and feel sorry for the excuses people tell them. We have at least two plots which haven't been touched for over a year and are waist high with rose bay and balsam. It's like knitting fog to get them to write a letter to say 'do something or else'. We also have a big waiting list , so as you say it's really frustrating. On the other hand we have done wonders in just one year by working together and as a whole the site is improving slowly.
Thanks for your encouragement!
PS What would be the advantages of self management other than being able to evict those who don't do anything at all?

[djbrenton]

Largely it's down to being able to spend the rents on what you consider important. It's tricky without knowing what you'd be in for as water bills. As an example here's our budget


Rent                   3,315
Water                  3,867
NAGS                      124
Rent in Lieu   
Machine Hire   100
Other                    200
Shop                  1,000
   
Total Income   8,606
   
Rent                       600
Water                    2,900
NAGS                       124
Insurance                         74
Honoraria                      400
   
Machinery                        50
Site Maintenance   1,500
Projects                      900
Keys                      200
Skips                     600
Promotion     300
Petrol                       80
Stationery     250
Other                     100
   
Total Expenditure   8,078
   
Profit   528

The major expenditures are on security fencing and a marquee, neither of which would be provided if we were council run anyway. In fact, the only things we HAVE to cover are water, rent and insurance which as you can see are fractions of the income.

[vee]

Thanks DJ. Are you getting £3867 for water  :o- does that mean you charge rent plus water? If so do you have water meters? You sound as if yours is a very big site compared to ours and you must have to do a lot of work to keep it all going! It is definitely something to think about. At the moment we have had about 4 skips provided to move the mountains of rubbish and we have been told it costs the council £50 each time and we are getting a meeting/storage thingy provided for us (subject to planning permission) so apart from the eviction frustration we have definitely moved forward.

[djbrenton]

Yes we charge a similar amount for water as rent. The funny thing is we still get some skips from the council and ocasional other help. In our case I'm not sure what we would have got if we were still council run.

[vee]

Why did you decide to go self managed and how difficult was it to do? Was your site well run before or has it made a big difference to you? Sorry for all these questions but don't know how it's done(yet)!

[Robert_Brenchley]

If you're going to be self-managed youy need to be very sure of who you elect to the committee. The nutters who used to run our site association would have totally destroyed the site if they'd had that much power; anyone they took a dislike to (which was a lot of people) would have been evicted, there would have been court cases over it, and all sorts of rubbish.

[djbrenton]

No city council run site is well run. You generally have one allotment officer responsble for maybe 20 or 30 sites. Is it any wonder they don't evict anyone. In order to evict you have to know the state of the allotment compared to other plots on the same site. Imagine that when you're responsible for 3,500 plots across the city.
You are also tied to proper procedure for any work carried out, so instead of a bunch of guys spreading some hardcore you've scrounged it costs the council the same hourly rate as repairing pavements. Guess how much it costs to repair a minor water leak, generally nothing when we're reposnsible for it ourselves. So allotment money isn't spent well by councils. One example, we've been having break ins via the same bit of the perimeter which adjoins council land. Our allotment officer agreed to put up more secure fencing over 15 yds then found out it would cost around £900 and couldn't justify it. Instead we put up secure fencing and razor wire over 200 yds for a total cost of less than £1500. To do the 15yds would have cost us £90 and a few hours work.
Sometimes councils will agree to some upgrades before handing over responsibility i.e fencing etc.
I'm not saying that every site would be better off run by an association, but if you work out what it would have cost for whatever the council has done for you over a yea it might be.
BTW your council should still provide skips free to associations as well as direct let sites. Tbh I don't think we get less help now than if we were still council run and we've also improved both the lettings and quality. Again, one allotment officer is too busy to promote your site or ensure it's gardened properly.
If you do go down that road, make sure you've got excellent constitutions and tenancy agreements with proper appeals procedures. Don't just use standard ones, they're less than perfect for every site. We had to include specific rules regarding the use of vehicles on the avenues, proper use of water, procedures before erecting buildings or planting trees etc.

[vee]

Thanks for your replies - I think the answer is to go into it with eyes wide open. There's definitely a lot to think about and you've both mentioned things I hadn't thought of. We have still to work out how we are going to put up 350 metres of fencing between us. Not everyone with plots is willing or able to help out so it's the same few who do it. We don't have the money to pay a contractor, but are hoping the probation service will give us a hand to finish it.

[vee]

Is yours council run or self managed Wardy?

[djbrenton]

I've no idea what responsiblities the council has in law to provide skips. All council owned sites in Nottingham get at least two free skips a year to dispose of non-combustible rubbish. I'd have thought that there was some requirement environmentally for councils to make provision. Waste is waste whether it's from householders or allotments. I'm not surprised the council won't take soil away though, they have the same policy for household refuse don't they. Imagine if you will that all the allotment holders placed their wheelie bins outside the allotments one day full of allotment rubbish. I wonder what would happen.

As regards fencing Vee. You'll possibly find there are community groups in your area devoted to young people or socially disadvantaged who provide free labour for projects. We have groundwork who will involve themselves in environmental projects with their volunteers ( they recently built a boardwalk around a well known pond for example ). There are numerous groups for recovering alcoholics or drug dependants who like to find useful occupation for their client group. Go and see your local CAB and they'll probably put you in touch with groups who'll help you. Personally I'd keep away from the probation services. Voluntary groups will only bring those who want to help i.e those who are genuinely trying to improve their lives. The probation service may well subborn unwilling teenage offenders, not the sort I'd particularly want to announce the existence of the allotments to.

[vee]

Unfortunately Groundwork here didn't want to know and we don't have public liability insurance so the volunteer bureau were iffy too. The probation service did a good job on our paths so they are our only hope for the moment as we have tried all the avenues you have suggested and I mean really tried! We will get there in the end, it's just that sometimes it's hard going. Thanks very much for the suggestions though. We are thinking of taking out public liability insurance though so I expect that would help. Where do you get yours DJ as I noticed the amount you pay for insurance was very low. We haven't had quotes but I have heard that it could be about £300.

[vee]

We wanted to have a group barbecue this summer but the council said we couldn't because of no insurance, so that's one of the reasons why we want to have public liability insurance. Thanks for finding out for me Wardy - that will be useful.

[djbrenton]

Special rates have been negotiated byt the National associations. I wonder, however whether the insurance brokers are really bothered if you're in a national body or not. Many of the offers 'negotiated' by the representative bodies are actually available to any bulk buyer/ organisation anyway.
Try phoning Rusell Scanlan on 0115 9470032 for a Commercial Combined quote from Norwich Union explaining that you're an allotment association. I bet you get the same rates as members of the National Council do.

[vee]

Thanks Wardy - you're a star!