Topic: Allotment Provision

[fletcher49]

Hello everyone

I am trying to gather information on the number of allotments provided by local councils and the number of people they serve.

Our council (I wont name them at the moment) provide 77 allotments for a population of 93,000 people (37,000 households). This is 2 lots per 1000 households, well below the recommendations of the NSALG which I believe to be 20 plots per 1000 households. I would like to try to get as much information regarding number of council plots and population from as many different areas as possible to try to show our council they are probably one of the worst providers in the country and possibly shame them into doing something about it.

Thanks in advance for any info.

[saddad]

Welcome to the site Fletch....
I'm on a private site but Derby has about 1000 plots on about twenty sites, from when we had an allotments forum a few years ago...
Little Eaton just North of Derby has none, they were on the radio today... the society has been going 8 years and still hasn't acquired a site!!
 :o

[ceres]

Richmond Upon Thames council provides 1,967 plots on 24 sites for 172,000 people (76,000 households).  I make that 25 per 1000 households? 

[fletcher49]

Thanks for the quick replies Saddad and Ceres. I thought I would have to wait a bit longer for people to dig figures etc from council web sites.
I didn't mention in my original post that the council has also just increased our rents by in some cases over 300% (that is not a typing error). I am quite "lucky" my rent has only increased from £25.33 to £90.44 per year.

[BAK]

Fletcher49.

We have 53 plots on our site in a parish that contains roughly 3000 households. So on a per plot basis we are close to the guideline but do not quite make it.

However, as far as I am aware the NSALG guideline is 20 full size plots per 1000 households. Our average size of plot is circa 5 poles, ie half size, which theoretically puts us well short of the guideline.

[skintnbitter]

Morning

I have a allotment in Leeds and the figures are as follows:

Population 715,000 Households 314,000 Number of plots 3,500 = 11 plots per 1,000

The population & household figures are from the last census 2001, please note that the population / households would have to increase 5 fold since 2001 to have an outcome of 2 plots per 1,000.   

[fletcher49]

Thanks for the continuing replies with the information. I hope all who have read my post are checking on their council web sites to find out number of plots, population etc.

Very good point about plot size BAK I hadn't considered that, although at the moment I think people in our area would be happy with plots of just about any size.

It is interesting (but probably not surprising) that I wrote to our council in October about allotment provision and rent increases and have not yet received a reply. However I received an invoice for next years rent on the plot but the details were wrong. I returned it to the council on Wednesday 17 December and I received a revised invoice this morning (20th December). Just goes to show they can respond quickly when it is a question of them getting something from us.

Fletch

[saddad]

I've just had my renewal for the NSALG, and there is a site survey form with it, so they might be updating their stats too.
 :)