Topic: Nasty nasty Swanley Town Council

[cornykev]

Thanks for the info Ian.    ;D ;D ;D

[betula]

Yes,some really good news and sadly some bad as you say.

Parish councils....would not give you tuppence for them..............The one round my way is straight out of Vicar of Dibley and they all think they are God Almighty.

[Ishard]

Local councils have the power to compuslary purchase land for allotments, so why dont you do that Ian?

[Unwashed]

And indeed compulsorily rent it, which is the NSALG's preferred option.  Council's will whinge that they don't have the cash to buy land (though it's a feeble excuse because providing sufficient allotments is a duty and not something a council can decide not to do), but because they can rent farmland at an agricultural rate there aren't many parish councils who couldn't find suitable and affordable land if they wanted to.

Ian, credit to you for what you're doing, and for engaging publicly on A4A.  It's more than my town councillors do.

[small]

Just to put in a good word for Parish Councils - they are not all bad, our councillors are very conscientious and go to a lot of trouble to improve our village. They work very hard for no reward.

[Unwashed]

Hi small, in your village does everyone who wants one have as big an allotment as they want?

[Ian Rashbrook]

Ishard and Unwashed,

Thanks for your posts. If compulsory purchase / renting was the way to meet the remaining unmet demand for allotments in Swanley, then that's what we almost certainly would do. However, the area without allotments - St Mary's ward - is heavily built up. There is open land nearby but it is on the other side of the near motorway standard A20 Swanley By-pass and is therefore not accessible. And a large swathe of the land is not picturesque countryside but somewhat less attractive gravel extraction pits. The most suitable piece of land is the former school playing fields. As they're already in public ownership it should be a simple matter of transferring the land from Kent County Council to Swanley Town Council. We'd then pick up the ongoing cost of managing the site. The problem is simply one of overcoming the inertia of Kent County Council. They're not against it happening, they just move at the pace of a lethargic snail.

Further south, in Christchurch ward, it is possible to cross the A20 and the allotments there are located on the other side of the A20 on land owned by Swanley Council but actually in neighbouring Crockenhill Parish. 

And now that I've mentioned Crockenhill, the parish council there, who are always a pleasure to deal with, do have a large amount of land for allotments and vacant plots that they would be delighted to see people take up.

Ian Rashbrook,
Labour councillor for St Mary's ward, Swanley
Deputy Leader, Swanley Town Council

[betula]

Ian,has crockenhill advertised those vacant plots.The reason I ask is that when I came to this area the allotment here had several vacant plots.I asked the parish council to advertise them and they were soon filled up.

Some parish councils may be fine but the one we have is self serving and inefficient.

After giving some initial help with the allotment they do not want to know now.

I won't bore you with the details but you have to speak as you find.

[appleman]

Maybe this post should now be called Horrible Hextable Parish Council as I have found out today that they want to throw the scouts of their allotment in Hextable Gardens, the 6th Swanley Scouts have been sharing the scout hut withe Hextable scouts for some time after the Swanley scout hut was burned down a while ago and they started an informal allotment along side there shared hut in Hextable Gardens but now the Hextable Parish Council are going to throw them off this informal Allotment. Cllr D Morris states in her letter to the newsshopper Jan. 20. 2010 that "the village has plenty of land in Lower road, hextable park or the heritage gardens for Allotment" Well if that is the case why are Hextable Parish Council not using this land to provide Allotments instead of giving notice to their residents and the scouts who want allotments ?

[Unwashed]

Why are Hextable Parish Council doing that?  Does the Scout Association lease the garden or just the scout hut?

[appleman]

I suspect it is because now that they have broken their agreement with Swanley Town Council, they want the Scout plot for the plotholder who used to garden in Swanley, but I do not really know as my information is coming from recent press letters in the newsshopper, my guess is from reading those press letters that Hextable Parish Council do not want to use the land they have as one section of the land is a park, and the land down Lower road is a football ground in winter and a cricket pavilion in summer, which would only leave the Hextable Heritage Gardens where the Scout hut is and apart from the informal Allotment Garden used by the scouts, these gardens are mainly used by dog walkers it is also the Hextable Parish Council offices, I do not know what the arrangements are regarding the lease of the scouts hut or garden, But I think it is unfair to treat the scouts in this way,

Perhaps that Swanley Town Councillor will be able to answer the question regarding the lease, It looks like the scouts will not only have lost their former home, but now are going to lose their Allotment as well

[Ian Rashbrook]

Sorry. I don't know what the arrangement is between the Scout Group and Hextable Parish Council.

However, I can say that Swanley Town Council is asking Hextable Parish Council to reconsider its decision to give notice to its resident using the allotment site in Swanley. That follows a meeting of Swanley's Environment Committee on Wednesday night.

Cllr Ian Rashbrook
Deputy Leader, Swanley Town Council

[Digeroo]

And a large swathe of the land is not picturesque countryside but somewhat less attractive gravel extraction pits

We are on the site of reclaimed gravel extraction.  The soil is rather gravelly but does does not seem to be presenting any problems.  Thought it has not been used for gravel for many years. 

With nature reserves on three sides it is stunningly attractive.

[I want an allotment]

This forum site is supposed to be used for the benefit of people to discuss topics of interest regarding allotments not for Swanley Councillors to use for their grubby little labour politics. The truth of the matter is that – of course Swanley want Mrs Ford to stay because they are getting Hextable Council to fork out over £300 per year for the lease of the two sites – do any of you who read this pay that much for your allotments? Hextable have been very good to Mrs Ford by paying this to help her over the transition period. they didn't have to pay a penny and I’m sure that as soon as they have their allotments sorted out Mrs Ford will be the first to be offered one. As far as the allotment which the scouts use I drive by this to work and it has not been cultivated for some considerable length of time. As a matter of interest the labour leader of Swanley Council, Councillor Woodbridge has an allotment in Dartford and I bet Dartford don’t charge him £150 per year.

[appleman]

I think Swanley Town Council want Mrs Ford to stay because of the failure of Hextable Council to provide her with a plot, Swanley town Council is a very pro Allotment and at it's recent meeting of the Environment Committee it resolved to ask its Council to look at providing even more Allotments, Swanley Council as already increased the number of Allotments earlier this year and the man who pushed this forward was Cllr Woodbridge and he would not have been able to do this if he had a plot in Swanley, because he would have had to declare an interest and leave, that same Cllr Woodbridge as been an allotment holder in Dartford long before he was a Councillor and he has Chairman of his allotment site,which is self-managed, he gets free manure, free woodchip, free timber for raised beds and free Labour from Kent probation to help keep the site tidy and help disabled and older gardeners to carry on Gardening, I only wish we had him on our site in Bexleyheath, It is a shame that ill health will mean that he wll have to give up his allotment soon and that will be a great loss to the local allotment movement, if you want this forum to discuss politics then you should not be going on about grubby little labour politics because as far as I can see it seems Labour Swanley Council provides Allotments while independent Hextable does NOT provide allotments, discussing who provides Allotments and who doe's not surely must be a matter of interest to all allotment holders! I see your name is I want an allotment well if you are serious about having an Allotment Crockenhill Parish Council have a few ready to take tenants as does tredegar allotments in Dartford or you could wait and see what other Councils do about providing more allotments, wish you every success in finding a plot soon

[asbean]

Phew!!!!

Welcome to A4A, appleman.

[halfofmanic]

She's a victim, nothing less. I could understand handing the plot to a local after she finished with it, but to take away the land she has transformed is criminal.
 What a pathetic bunch of pratts!........ :P

exactly what i was going to write  after reading all the comments  but you summed it
up perfectly. these councillors don't have the faintest idea how much work people put in to get there plots sorted 

[appleman]

Some Councillors do and I know a lot of Councillors who have plots and you often seem them digging and planting, so those I know of in Bexley, Dartford and Swanley do understand the amount of work that goes on so lets hope that the Hextable Council reconsiders it's withdrawal of the lease and allows this lady to stay, I think it would be in the long term interest of all Hextable residents if Hextable had its own allotments and then the problem would be solved for Mrs Ford, but there still remains the scout problem who have been asked to leave thier informal "Allotment" in Hextable by Hextable Council. the bit about all this I don't get is that in the local press an Hextable Councillor says they have the land so I cannot understand why Hextable don't just get its own allotment site? Lets hope they do soon and we can all get back to talking about Apples and veg and all those sort of gardening things,

[I want an allotment]

Well done Mr Appleman, you’re right, Swanley Town Council is very pro Allotments, so much so that when they ran Hextable, which they did until the break a couple of years ago, they did not provide one site for the Hextable residents and as you can see the very most Hextable residents got out of Swanley was a measly two plots. Of course Hextable Council is trying to make up to its residents what was greatly lacking from Swanley whilst they were in charge. They have only been going a couple of years I think and from what I hear they aren’t doing too bad.We could go on about this all night but you haven’t answered the Question – do you pay over £150 a year for your plot? – If not perhaps you’d like to help out with a donation. I’ll find out the address of the parish office where you can send it if you like!

[Unwashed]

Why haven't Hextable Parish Council created an allotment site of their own?  Two years is more than enough time.