Topic: How much does your allotment service cost

[Unwashed]

How much does it cost your council to provide your allotment service.  I reckon that's a really tough question because I don't think it's a figure councils are very happy to be made public, but I'd be really interested if you know.

It's important because this year Newbury Town Council proposed a £25/pole rent to cover all of their declared costs of providing the allotment service - so not just covering the maintenance, but all of the administration too.  The proposal was withdrawn at the last minute, but it looks likely it'll be back next year and it might be a trend you see elsewhere.

But now that it's been raised it becomes important to question the efficiency of the service provision.  In Newbury the council own up to costs of £22k for maintenance and £39k for administration, but there's a share of the council overheads to add in there too, so that's another £64k making a total of £125k - so almost £50/pole to cover all their costs.

The Council have so far aggressively resisted any possibility of self-management - I guess they don't want to lose their cash-cow.  I'd be interested to know if their efficiency is typical.

[tonybloke]

the cost to our town council for provision of allotments is.................... nil  !!!

[Bugloss2009]

if it costs the council £50/pole to cover their costs, and you pay less than £25, how is it a cash cow? More like an albatross, or am I missing something

[irnhed]

Interesting to speculate on what those costs might be.

On our (relatively small) allotment South West of B'Ham, the only thing I can think that the council pay for is 2 skips per year.

All of the administration is done by the Secretary / committee.  Even the 'register your interest in an allotment' section on the council website just sends your details to the secretary (I imagine there will be an office junior in the background picking the emails up and directing them).

Maintenance is done by the committee & members on our monthly Work Days.  The council do cut the trees etc. around the outside of the allotment - but they'd have to do that anyway.  They only cut them for the convenience of the people walking past.  Wish they'd cut them more so that my plot would get more sun, but I digress.

The fencing needs replacing, but the council aren't interested.  Apparently, they've sent out surveys to all of the allotments in their area, asking what our 'priorities' are, so that they can prioritise funding.  I'm not holding my breath.

I can't think what would possibly cost that amount of money for 'administration'.

I know I'm probably preaching to the converted, but self-management by the committee 'volunteers' has to be the simpliest, cheapest and most efficient way.

For context, mine is currently a 'half plot' (we have a 'probation' year on a half, before you can upgrade to a full - fingers crossed that one is available at the AGM...) which measures 2.95 poles, and costs £8.50 a year (water included).

[Unwashed]

if it costs the council £50/pole to cover their costs, and you pay less than £25, how is it a cash cow? More like an albatross, or am I missing something

It doesn't matter to Newbury Town Council whether it's the allotmenteer who pays or the tax-payer so long as they get to spend all that lovely money.  £125k of it.  What does upset them is the thought of losing the pretext for spending it.

[lottie lou]

Whereabouts are you Ironhead?  I'm down S B'ham and all we get is bogs, and water.  I'm not complaining but I think Newbury council is taking the p, however it is in the lovely area called "South East England" or "damgud profitable building land".

[BAK]

In the case of Parish Councils where multiple tasks are undertaken by a very small number of people I doubt if they have any idea what the allotment service costs.

In our case a single Grounds Manager is responsible for a recreation ground, a small cemetery and the allotments. He also gets to do other jobs such as maintaining the various council notice boards, delivering newsletters, etc etc.

He does not log his time to these individual tasks, nor is a set percentage of his time allocated to (say) the allotments.  The same applies to the clerk who handles rents, lettings etc.

The bottom line is that it must be well nigh impossible to work out costs for the allotment service.

[Unwashed]

BAK, that wouldn't do in any other business, and as a council needs to account for how it spends public money I think it should be open about the cost of its services.  It's not rocket science, you just have to estimate how much time everyone spends on the various services.

[BAK]

I agree that it is not rocket science Unwashed and I agree that they should be able to come up with some figures - I say this as somebody who spent a fair amount of my working life making predictions, often based on very limited information.

I am merely describing what actually goes on in the world of Parish Councils, not how you (or I) might wish that they operated. They are often run on a shoestring and tend to rely on volunteers to get by. In my experience they are likely to act "like a business" on the larger ticket items. However, allotments, in terms of priorities, revenue, expenditure or any other criterion are I am afraid in the noise for most Parish Councils.

[irnhed]

@Lottie - I'm in Dudley.  We have a portaloo, but only the brave and bold dare enter it.  I think it was council provided originally, but not maintained.

[PIGEON]

I am in Northants and my 20 pole allotment is £24 per year.  The only facilities we have is a source of water.

PIGEON

[GRACELAND]

I am in Northants and my 20 pole allotment is £24 per year.  The only facilities we have is a source of water.

PIGEON

Your luck to have water we have nothing for our £27 a year plot  ???

[gwynnethmary]

I am in Northants and my 20 pole allotment is £24 per year.  The only facilities we have is a source of water.

PIGEON

I'm in Hartlepool and our rent is £47.  We get water.

[GRACELAND]

I am in Northants and my 20 pole allotment is £24 per year.  The only facilities we have is a source of water.

PIGEON

I'm in Hartlepool and our rent is £47.  We get water.

:o :o :o :o :o


Wow hope the ground is good for that !!

[Mr Smith]

The only two services we get for our £38.00 a year off our council are two water taps that supply twentyfive allotments with rubbish water pressure and the grass cut once a year, :)

[djbrenton]

Are we all talking about the same measurement? A pole is 30 1/4 sq yds. If that's the case then at Newbury rates I'd be paying nearly £500 for each of my plots.

[darren2007]

ours cost 22 pound per year for full plots and 11 pound for half plots we have plenty of water taps and also get skips now and again also  a very good allotment shop run by allotment holders

[GRACELAND]

My plot last year

[Unwashed]

Are we all talking about the same measurement? A pole is 30 1/4 sq yds. If that's the case then at Newbury rates I'd be paying nearly £500 for each of my plots.

£25/pole was the rate Newbury Town Council proposed for new tenants, but they backed down and set a rate of £6.94/pole for everyone, both new and existing tenants.  And yes, a pole==25m²==30yds².

The question I pose is not particularly asking how much personally you pay for your plot, but how much money does your council spend to provide your allotment service.  So for example, a council that provides its allotment service by renting its sites to self-managing associations may well spend nothing at all providing that allotment service, whereas a council that directly manages its sites may well spend quite a lot of money, as Newbury Town Council do, spending £125k to provide 550 plots that generate just £17.5k revenue (after imposing an unlawful 47% increase), burdening the Newbury tax-payer with a bill for more than £100k that mostly pays for administration and overheads.

Newbury Town Council proposed £25/pole because they were embarrassed both by the length of the waiting list and by the amount of tax-payer's money they were spending to provide the service.  They hoped that by setting that rate for new tenants they would avoid too many complaints and also discourage people from taking a plot thus reducing the waiting list.  £25/pole is what it costs to break even with their declared admin costs of £39k, but they have another £340k of admin costs and overheads for all services that they account for seperately to keep the apparent cost of the services down, and when you factor that in the break-even rate is just shy of £50/pole, and there's no reason to suppose the council won't set that on us next year.

It's a very good reason for going self-managed so we can get our rents back down, but of course the Council rather enjoy spending all of that money - all the power and prestige - so they point-blank refuse to discuss self-management and have suppressed the allotment society to crush any decent.

[PIGEON]

I am trying to persuade them to install toilets and a notice board..