Topic: Compulsory Rental

[Unwashed]

Like most of you, allotments are long in my area.  My council have been looking at creating new sites but some councillors are strongly opposed to buying a site because of the cost.

I've found advice from the NSALG that councils can compulsorily rent land at an agricultural rent, and I wondered if you'd come across that and could verify.

[blockquote]Where land for allotments is to be acquired compulsorily, NSALG prefers that the
compulsory hiring, provided for in section 39 subsection (2) Small Holdings and
Allotments Act 1908, be resorted to.  This provides for a compulsory hiring of land for
allotments, for a minimum of 14 years and a maximum of 35 years,  on first hiring.  Any
such hiring would be at an agricultural rent, currently £65 - £85 per acre per year.  In any
such hiring, the Landlord Paramount (landowner) retains the reversionary interest in the
land.[/blockquote]

[Unwashed]

Hmm.  You know, it's a funny thing, but I don't find many people with a serious interest in creating new allotment sites, and that seems odd because of the length of the waiting lists.  I'm happy with the plot that I have so there's nothing in this for me, it's just I believe passionately in the allotment movement and I would like to see councils right accross the country putting some real effort into creating new sites and then recruiting new allotmenteers.  It's a national disaster that there are 100, 000 people on allotment waiting lists, but I don't see any coordinated effort to do anything about it and I think that's a wretched shame.

I'd like to see some initiative from some of the people on the lists, and in fairness there is some, but I feel they're being let down by the councils with the legal duty to provide the plots.  If I understand it right, councils have the power to compulsorily hire agricultural land for allotments at an agricultural rent so the only thing preventing many councils from doing the right thing is resolve.  OK, in cities there often just isn't the land, but that's no excuse in most suburban areas which are surrounded with farmland.

Now, what if allotment associations had the power to compulsorily hire land, I bet that would get the allotment movement moving.

[saddad]

OK, in cities there often just isn't the land, but that's no excuse in most suburban areas which are surrounded with farmland.

I agree... we were approached by a landowner with a couple of acres of land that had been private allotments until the 80's who was considering bringing them back into cultivation but we couldn't get any help from the Allotments regeneration Initiative mob...  >:(

[Digeroo]

Compulsory Rental sounds like a great idea but the minimum 14 years sounds like a bit of an issue.  Will the present craze for allotments last that long?

It seem odd that here where we are surrounded by farmland that farmers are not leaping at the change to get much more for their land than agricultural rents.

I was in touch with someone recently who was told they had to pay hundreds of pounds and fill in huge forms for change of use of land to be considered.  Not only are local authorities not helping they seem to be putting unnecessary obstacles in the way.

[tonybloke]

I was in touch with someone recently who was told they had to pay hundreds of pounds and fill in huge forms for change of use of land to be considered.  Not only are local authorities not helping they seem to be putting unnecessary obstacles in the way.

there is no need for a 'change of use', agriculture/horticulture, is the same as far as planning goes