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squash64 i had the letter off brimingham rip you off sh1ty council and given i paid £24 last yr, will pay 28 this yr, then 2011 they want 40 2012 they want 60 and 2013 75..... :o im gob smaked, think ill be loosing my plot as i just cannot afford it anymore :'( kids were upset when i told them too and this late payment penalty buisness??? pay by 9th nov or u loose ur plot, k get it, but does the £10 penalty apply if theyre not paid on or by the 1st oct or after the 9th nov?? cos surely they cant make u pay a late fee AND take your plot??? eh?? i think the councils cottoned on that its become popular again n want 2 put a load of ppl off making the sites half empty or worse again so they can justify reclaiming the land or at least clawing better revenues off it >:( borrocks i say! grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!this was for us an affordable safe place to take the kids to learn about growing food get some fresh air exercise and a place to grow stuff given nothing thrives in our garden @ home and i know the increase may not be a lot by many people standards but for us its mighty painfull!!!! wha does anyone else think about the rate of increase???????????? seems 2b mighty fast 2 me.... :o
I thought Allotment Law was quite 'prescriptive'? How have these councils managed to get around:1) Rents can only be increased at the same rate as other leisure facilities (or are they facing massive increases too?)2) You should receive 12 months notice of any increase.
On the other hand, the point of allotments is to give people a chance to grow stuff and add to the general wellbeing of the community.But that is almost completely thwarted by people sitting on plots and not doing much .... because it is cheap to do so. So putting up the price might encourage them to rethink. And you know turnover can have an upside. We've got people hanging on to plots for when they retire on the fear that if they give up, they will never get another plot. If people knew that they would only have to wait 1 year for a plot, they'd feel more secure about giving up when they just hadn't got the time to do anything. And more than half of folk get their plots half price anyway. As my neighbour says: he gets 2 for the price of 1 !Must admit, if I were on the council here, I would ramp up the rent and see what happens.
Good points Digeroo. Of course you're not obliged to accept the discount, but I guess a lot would. But I also don't like discounts where the allotmenteer has to prove how old she is, or that she doesn't have a job. That just seems demeaning. But as you say, it's important to remember that for any discount there are other allotmenteers paying more to cover it.After last year's 47% increase Newbury Town Council are talking about introducing a 25% pensioner discount this year (divide and rule, right out of Machiavelli) - and the most likely way they'll do it is increase rent for everyone else by 33%!I'm working on a charging structure for when Newbury becomes self-managed and I'm thinking about including a voluntary element. If you can afford it you make a £12 voluntary donation, and the management trust gets another 28% back from HMRC for everyone who's a basic rate tax-payer, and if for whatever reason you don't feel able to make the donation then you get an effective £12 discount without the indignity of explaining why you can't afford full cost. The pricing structure isn't flat, but for example the discount on an average plot would be 35% like this. More importantly, because we're self-managed all but the smallest plots would be substantially cheaper than Newbury Town Council currently charges.
I must have missed you announcing you finally got the council to agree to selfmanagement. Thats a huge breakthrough. Im sure your site will go from strength to strength now. Well done.
It saddens me to hear this. I've always expected allotmenteers help and support each other. As sites, and as a movement, our strength is our committment to one another, and that means supporting those who aren't as able to pay. If there are uncultivated plots then there is a process to address that, and it's a process best left to the site secretaries who make a careful judgement and balance all the factors. The price of renting a plot mustn't be used to make allotmenteering the exclusive preserve of the middle-aged middle class.