Topic: £25/pole rent

[Unwashed]

My council votes on Monday on a proposal to set the rent for new tenants at £25/pole.  It's currently £4.71.  They have 300 odd allotmenteers on six sites, with 100 on the waiting list.  Our sites are managed directly by the council and they spend about £60k, mainly on administration, but only get around £12k in rent so they say it's only fair we pay our way.  But I can't help feel that it'll kill the allotment movement in Newbury if they vote it through.  I've been campaigning for a couple of years to allow tenants to get involved in the maintenance and administration and we've now got an effective society going, though the council has been hostile to our formation and is only now talking about working with us, so it's a sensitive time and I'm not sure what to do for the best.  I don't particularly want to go self-managed because I don't particularly want to see the allotment staff at the council made redundent, but if the alternative is £25/pole and the decline of allotmenteering in Newbury I choose the allotment.  I'd really rather they hadn't come up with this stupid idea because it doesn't help at all.

[elvis2003]

hi unwashed,just my quick thoughts as im up very early tmrw to take OH to his op the other side of town,which has effectievely shut down in the snow,so ill come back with more tmrw evening.my first thought is not to worry about the council staff having  jobs,they will be shifted to another dept,im sure

[Digeroo]

Precisely what are the council doing for their £60k mainly administration cost?  This is two people full time.    If they get 12K in rent then this is what they should budget to spend.  I other words one part time person.  

[Unwashed]

Hi Digeroo, There are several staff that deal with the allotments; principally two full-time clearks and a services manager, though they have other duties and there are other council staff that get involved too.  What the council have done is looked at their total running costs and divvied it up amoungst the various services they provide according to the amount of time they spend on it.  There's about £12k maintenance costs is there too, but most of the £60k is administration - which is principally sending out the bills and dealing with the odd complaint.

[grawrc]

I deal with the admin (minutes, bills, newsletters, complaints, termination etc letters) for our site (100 plots). The costs pro rata are much lower than what your council quotes but then I and the other committee members are volunteers so there are no salary costs. The time involved is probably in the region of 2-3 hours per week on average so not huge.

[1066]

It sounds like an awful lot of money for not a lot of work to me. (I think) my council has 1 member of staff to manage all the sites, sounds like there is something amiss in the system to me. And such a hike in rents will surely prevent a lot of people continuing with their plots?!
What do neighbouring boroughs do / charge?

Hope you have better news for us on Monday!
1066

[Sparkly]

Hi Digeroo, There are several staff that deal with the allotments; principally two full-time clearks and a services manager, though they have other duties and there are other council staff that get involved too. 

Then they should be looking at how efficiently their staff are working. They are either doing jack-all or the systems they are asking them to do are ridiculous.

Don't worry about the staff there is alot of movement between departments in councils and before making them redundant they will have to try this.

They are putting the guilt trip on you to try and get you to comply by telling you this information.

Don't bend to the pressure.

That is a ridiculous charge for an allotment.

[ACE]

The ground staff workers most probably are not 'council workers' as I expect they got shifted to the private sector when nearly all the ground staff all over the country  where sold along with the machinery to private contractors. They will only be paid the minimum wage so being put out of work will not be a hardship, just a dent in their pride.
You will be doing a few a favour as redundency pay goes a long way to setting you up as a private gardener. It done it for me. Never looked back.

[Old Central]

Get political and get the local press involved. It sounds like a horror story for the front page with an election only 5 months away and is a great time to apply pressure.

Since most local papers hardly employ any staff draft up a story supported with quotes, photos and supporting documents to demonstrate the veracity of the story.

OC

[Unwashed]

Thanks.  You're right ACE, ground staff are all contractors, but most of the cost goes on council-employed office workers.  It's only a Town Council, 12 or so staff total, so self-management would have to mean redundancies because thet's where the council would save the money.

Grawrc, I'm amazed how little work it takes to administer 100 plots - it does make £60k look very bad value for money doesn't it.

Old Central, it is kind of political.  The Society wants the council's cooperation and making a big song and dance over this is going to make the council very cross with us, but I can't help feeling there'll be nothing left of the allotment service in a few years if the rent goes to £25/pole so it's looking like there's nothing to lose.

Ideally the council would come and talk to us first, but that's not happened yet.  We have been asked our opinion, but I don't know how much notice they'll take.

[Digeroo]

I had a part time job where we sent out more than six hundred invoices every month, and dealing with them and the resulting payments and credit control was only a small part of my job.   Since there is little year to year change,  sound like they need a good spreadsheet or a bit of accounting software which will churn out the invoices.

[grawrc]

Absolutely! My first year in the job I did a lot more hours producing templates etc but now we have them it's just a cut and paste and print. Address labels  for everyone take about 20 seconds to produce - in fact it takes longer to stick them on the envelopes!

Edinburgh council has one full-time allotments officer to deal with over 1000 plots on 21 sites and a waiting list of over 2000 (some of whom he passes on to me). The rent for the plots which vary from about 180sq metres to 250 sq metres is £60 and £30 for concessions irrespective of the actual area of the plot. i.e. you pay the same for 180 as 250 - it's the luck of the draw and depends on things like the shape of the site. Half-plots where available get charged half prices.

We, on the other hand charge £20 per plot (about 200 sq metres but variable!!) and £10 per half plot with no concessions. We have water but no toilets. Correction we now have one composting toilet. We are also responsible for all site maintenance and security.

[Digeroo]

Cut and paste is fine but a good macro will just work down a list and print out an invoice for each person.  You are right stuffing the envelopes will take the most time.
I used to do that while I was talking on the phone answering queries.  But that is just the kind of thing they could pass on to allotment volunteers.  Matching the payments is a little more time consuming.   My guess is that there is little non payment. 

[BAK]

I have just noticed even more expensive plots in an article in The Ecologist. This is another example of a private company who thinks that there is money to be made out of allotments.

The New Allotment Company Ltd is advertising plots of 1000 sq. feet (approx. 4.5 poles according to my maths) for £150 per year. Information is very sketchy, eg no indication if it is mains water. Lots of parking spaces (50 for a 300 plot site) but only 6 standpipes for the whole site.

http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_round_up/391703/private_allotment_company_gets_mixed_welcome.html

There is a link at the bottom of the article to the company's website.

[Digeroo]

I am on a private site and yes it would be nice to have a local authority one but there are none in our area. The farmer is getting more than for meadow land, and does not have to feed the allotments twice a day 365 days a year. 

I cannot image at that price they will get many people off waiting lists.

http://www.nlgn.org.uk/public/2009/can-you-dig-it-meeting-community-demand-for-allotments/

States 1% own 70% of the land.  I think there is plenty of land around.

[Unwashed]

Hi BAK, that's depressing.  3.6 poles for £150, increadible.  It makes me very cross.  It excludes all but the most affluent from an opportunity to grow their own, and that is the basis of the allotment movement.  It's a hobby for a lot of us, yes, but primarity it's somewhere for us to grow food to feed our families.  And the problem is with the councils.  Everywhere but London, councils have a duty to provide enough plots for everyone to have as big a plot as they want, and they have the power to rent the land at an agricultural rent so in most cases the only reason there are waiting lists is because councils are choosing to ignore their legal duty.  Sites can be run at a profit and still charge £4/pole, so if the councils run their service inefficiently they should be taken to task by their tax payers.

[BAK]

yes your maths is better than mine - its 3.6 poles.

[Geoff H]

Is a pole a full sized allottment? I read somewhere about what people could expect to pay for an allotment and the rent for a full sized plot went up to £250/year and at that rate you would expect secure fencing, water supply and toilets.
I would be wary of too much publicity. It might back fire. i have had to go private cause we don't have allotments. i have enough land for about 2 1/2 allotments. I have water, which I can extend, a toilet and a 24 hour manned gate - a tramp lives in a shed and guards the gate! I am paying hundreds/ year so will be selling quite a bit of produce just to pay the rent.

[grawrc]

I believe  "standard" allotments are between 5 and 10 poles

[saddad]

Our standard plots are ten poles...
 

Is a pole a full sized allottment? I read somewhere about what people could expect to pay for an allotment and the rent for a full sized plot went up to £250/year and at that rate you would expect secure fencing, water supply and toilets.

I can't get them to agree to pay £27 pa and we have all of the above....  >:(