Topic: Nasty nasty Swanley Town Council

[I want an allotment]

I expect they have had a lot of other mess that they have inherited from Swanley and if you care to read back you will find your answer there.

[appleman]

I suspect the reason why Hextable Parish Council has not provided Allotments for it's residents is because of the cost of setting up an Allotment site, Hextable Councillors promised that if they left Swanley Town Council the Hextable Council tax would always be lower than Swanley's, having said that, Hextable P.C. should have set up it's own Allotment site by now as they have had two years to do so and Cllr D Morris from Hextable as already said in the newsshopper that Hextable has the land for an Allotment site, It should be remembered here that it is Hextable Parish Council who have given Mrs Ford notice to quit her Allotment and not Swanley Town Council. It is the same Hextable Council who now want the Scouts to leave thier unofficial Allotment they created along side thier Hut in Hextable gardens and I now understand that Hextable P.C. want to throw out the scouts from thier hut in Hextable gardens, despite them having a 7 year lease to be there, to answer the question posed by newbie, no I do not pay £150 a year for my plot its £35 a year And niether does Mrs Ford pay £150 a year, She pays £20 a year the same as all the other Swanley Allotment holders, My understanding of this £150 is what Swanley charge Hextable for the lease of the allotment, What Swanley did was to work out all the costs involved in providing allotments and divided this cost between the number of plots and it works out at £150 a plot and Swanley Council, then charged this to Hextable as it seemed unfair that Swanley's taxpayers should subsidise another Council. but that is getting off the main theme here which is that Mrs Ford will be without an Allotment because Hextable P.C. have failed to provide for her to have an Allotment and we should all be writing to Hextable P.C. and the local papers asking Hextable to provide Allotments for its residents.

[Digeroo]

I personally do not think that either Hextable nor Swanley seem to be very reasonable.  It is not surprising that they ended up having a divorce! 

Swanley apparently seem to have been subsidising the Hextable allotments for many years so it does not seem unreasonable to me that they continue with one the other way in the interim.  It is totally unreasonable for it to cost £150 per allotment plot in costs.

This whole discussion is unseemly and childish, haven't these councils got better things to do than try and score petty points off each other.  Is all this worth the upset than this must be causing to the one allotment holder and the scouts? 

[Unwashed]

I agree Digeroo.  They're behaving like waring hillbillies.

[cjb02]

I agree Digeroo.  They're behaving like waring hillbillies.

This is why I loathe politicians, it is all about the party and party members not the public that they are supposed to serve.

[appleman]

It may well be, but are you going to write to BOTH councils and ask them to find a way forward ? wether the Councils have made mistakes or not, the most important thing here, surely is to find Mrs Ford an alllotment plot that she can grow her fruit and veg on, is it not ? So if we all agree that is what we would all like to see, then the way forward I think is to get her own Parish Council of Hextable to provide an allotment site in Hextable for her and other like minded residents. Hextable Council have stated they have land avalible for allotments, so I say come on Hextable Council rise above this argument with Swanley and start your own Allotment site, I and most of the allotment holders here in Bexleyheath are going to write to the Hextable Council urging them to find an allotment for this lady and the more of you who write the more chance of finding a solution for Mrs Ford, the address for Hextable Council is The Parish office,Heritage centre,Hextable, Kent, the more of us who write the more chance this lady will have of getting a plot.

[Ian Rashbrook]

I do get a bit exasperated by the "you're all the same", "you're all in it for yourselves" type comments, the  most recent version being "it is all about the party and party members not the public that they are supposed to serve".

Very clearly Swanley Town Council, which does provide allotments and recently increased the number oif them so everyone on our waiting list could have a plot, is not the same as Hextable Parish Council which choses not to provide any allotments. And the Swanley residents who benefited from the allotments are not party members - they are very much members of the public that we are supposed to and do serve.

There is a waiting list again because more people have signed up and we'll provide more plots once we have been able to secure an appropriate site (Kent County Council are the stumbling block as they want to build houses on the former school playing fields that we'd like to use - but we're working on that). If anyone wants to help us provide extra allotments a few letters to Cllr Paul Carter, the Leader of Kent County Council, wouldn't go amiss.

Cllr Ian Rashbrook
Chair of Policy and Resources and Labour councillor for St Mary's ward
Swanley Town Council

[mat]

Is it just me?  But does anyone else want to say "Kids, please give it a break..." and "stop being like a dog with a bone..."

[Robert_Brenchley]

I think it's about time this thread was locked; it's just an endless argument with nothing being added by either side.