Topic: Allotment Complaints

[sara g]

Hi All
We've just recieved two complaints from the council, one about noise and one about bonfires, on our site.  These complaints were recieved from neighbouring properties.
Im treating these complaints with caution at the moment, for reasons that i cannot go into.
But my question is do we have a right to know who has made the complaints against the gardens or not? Just, the whole situation sounds a bit iffy. So if anyone can help I would be grateful, there is a contact number on the letters do I just ring the council and ask who has complained.
Cheers  :)

[manicscousers]

I don't know about your question but we had a complaint about our fence (8') and our communal polytunnel (you know what's grown in there, don't you  ::) )
we had to deal with the complaint, planning permission and paint the fence green..still have never found out who it was and we only have 1 neighbour behind a 25' high leylandii hedge and dog walkers along the fence..hope you can sort it out , it doesn't do any harm to ring :)

[Unwashed]

Hi Sara, can you just clarify:  Are the complaints made against you as a plot holder or are you the site secretary of a self-managed site?  What is the nature of the complaint?  Is it an official notice of statutory nuisance from the Environmental Protection team at the County Council?  Has the council served you notice of a breach of a tenancy condition?

How you deal with it depends on the above.

[Mr Smith]

Personally I would ask the council if they could identify the noise that the member of the public is complaining about and being a responsible committee you will look in to the complaint and do something about it, regarding bonfires we are allowed them on our allotments after 1800 hours but if I lived adjacent to a bonfire I think I would be complaining, :)

[sara g]

Hi Sara, can you just clarify:  Are the complaints made against you as a plot holder or are you the site secretary of a self-managed site?  What is the nature of the complaint?  Is it an official notice of statutory nuisance from the Environmental Protection team at the County Council?  Has the council served you notice of a breach of a tenancy condition?

How you deal with it depends on the above.


Hi The complaints have been made to the site, I am the new site secretary. I do believe the site is self managed, again this is a grey area, as nobody on site seems to know.  I recieved these letters through the post from our town council allotment clerk. There are two complaints both from the enviromental team one for Alleged Nuisance from Garden Bonfires and the other Alleged Noise Nuisance.

There is one extraxt from the letter regarding Noise nuisance that I dont follow, perhaps Im just being stoopid.  :-[   It reads    " It should be made clear that the council is not confirming this allegation, it is merely making you aware of the complaint and requesting your co-operation to deal with any problems which may occur at this early stage"

This is all new to me, so I will try to answer your questions as best as I can.
Cheers Sara

[sara g]

Mr Smith
 I totally agree with the bonfires, as I too would complain if they were being lit during the day.  But not everyone on site is as considerate, in fact some of our tenants are just d**n right the opposite. But there is never anyone around to catch them in the act, despite posters being displayed all over the site they just seem oblivious.
Sara

[pumkinlover]

When I have received complaints from the council about bonfires and Chickens they would not tell me who the complainant was.  The complainant appears to have the right to confidentiality! I have found that if you take reasonable steps to be considerate to your neighbours the council officials take this on board but have a duty to pass on the complaint. Most council officials are used to people who complain for the sake of it.  It did get silly when someone kept calling the firebrigade out to allotment bonfires (which were being supervised when this happened and quite safe). That annoyed me as it meant the fire engine was called for nothing.  Welcome to the world of  being an allotment secretary!!

We have managed to get grants to buy a shredder and a container to keep it in so that we can discourage the lighting of bonfires but it is very hard to get the more mature allotment holders to change their habits.

[Unwashed]

Sara, you need to find out exactly what self-management arrangements are in place.  If you haven't already then it would be a very good idea to request a meeting with the town clerk to introduce yourself as the new site secretary and see that you both understand how the arrangements are expected to work.

Essentially there are two different situations.

One is that your site association manages the site for the council under licence or leases the site from the council under a devolved management arrangement.  In this case the council can hold you responsible for any nuisance under the terms of the agreement and can potentially fine you or even end the self-management agreement or terminate the lease.  That it's one of your tenants causing the nuisance isn't significant, you're expected to pass on the obligations and enforce them.

The other is that the site association has no formal arrangement with the council except maybe to pass on to the council any breaches of the tenancy agreement that come to your notice, and in this case the Council need to take up any nuisance issues with the tenants directly.

Is there any paperwork anywhere with other members of your committee that shed light on your management arrangements?  Who collects the rent?

[TividaleJo]

Hi Sara
In regards to if your a self managed site or not, the way it works in Sandwell is that we have allotment meetings just for self managed sites by a formed allotments council that act on behalf of us to the council should issues arise. We had one guy there who was adement there site was council run but as secretary you get the rent due invoice for the whole of the site and council tenent site are individually invoiced for their plot and thats how that one worked out, but the council should be able to tell you either way.
In regards to the complaints i would have to speak with the council and ask them what they are saying and meaning by the letters you recieved.
Hope you manage to sort it out and as a new found secretary i can feel for you
Jo

[sara g]

Thanks all
I know we get a bill each year from the council for ground rent for the entire site and we collect rents every year from our tenants. We are responsible for any rent increases that we wish to impose, ie. for skips water etc.  We also have regular committee meetings and occaisionally a Council meeting to attend. In fact the last meeting I attended, the town council were on a mission regarding enforcement of rules etc. They have, over the past 10 or so years turned a blind eye to the 2/3rds cultivated ruling and cockerels on site rule, as long as things were kept tidy and no complaints were recieved, but now they have decided to start enforcing the rules and given everyone 6 months to sort their plots out and get rid of any cockerels. Just seems a little unfair to me. But rules are rules i suppose.  In fact the guy next to me has taken 3 plots over that have been laid to grass and fruit trees, the council have always approved of this as long as it is kept tidy and well managed, which it is.  Are the council being unreasonable in saying that he needs to now cultivate most of his plot even if it means he has to build raised beds? The guy in question is in his 60s and has a chronic heart condition, I really feel for him.

Sorry digressed a little.
It was the date after this meeting that the complaints were recieved, HMMMM.... dont know whether we're being stitched up or not!!!!
Or am just suspiciously minded!!!

[lavenderlux]

To my way of thinking, bonfire smoke is a serious environmental problem which causes a great nuisance and it doesn't really make any difference whether or not you know who was it was that complained to the council about this nuisance from your allotment site - you need to take urgent action to stop it and be good neighbours.  You have mentioned a 'committee' could they not also help to take steps to ensure rules on bonfires are complied with and everyone made aware of them.
On our site, we have houses along the longest side and bonfire smoke was a constant problem so we have now banned bonfires completely, we have a shredder (heavy duty model for which we received part funding from the council) to deal with fruit bush/tree prunings and have working parties to sort this out and skips twice a year for other rubbish. 

[sara g]

I really do understand that bonfires do cause a real nuisance, I have regular experience from a not so curteous neighbour at home, that thinks it is fine to burn allsorts of stuff that sends up clouds of black smoke. However, we do allow our gardeners to have bonfires as long as they are only burning dry wood that will not create as much smoke and that they are lit after a certain time of day, usually just before dark. This has always been an acceptable practice by ourselves and the council.  But someone has obviously flouted these rules and caused us some trouble.

[Unwashed]

Sara, the situation you describe is a little inconsistent, and you need to get it straight before you try and take any action because if a problem tenant doesn't just do as you ask you need to follow through pretty swiftly with enforcement because if you don't you lose the right to later, and you can also get yourself into all kinds of expensive trouble if you try and enforce a rule and it turns out you're not actually the landlord.

This is the inconsistency:  If the council bill you annually for the site that probably means you rent the site from them, and if you bill the tenants that probably means you're their landlord, but if that's the case then the enforcement of the rules is not the council's business, their only concern is whether you are keeping the conditions under which you rent the site from them.  However, it's possible that you're not actually the tenant's landlord and the bill the council send you is not for site rent and what's in place is a management agreement and you're actually the landlord's agent with devolved power to allocate tenancies and bill the tenant and keep back any rent over and above a defined level.  You absolutely need to know which it is.

You have a committee of management.  Is it a body corporate, or unincorporated?
Do you have trustees?
Who exactly does the council send the bill to - an individual designated by the committee?
Is there any kind of paperwork that defines the terms of the agreement between your committee and the council?
Who issues the written tenancy agreements to tenants?
Who decides on the rules?
How are the rules incorporated into the tenancy agreement?
What do the rules say about bonfires, noise, and nuisance in general?

And no, rule are not rules.  There are a few implied covenants in any tenancy, but in general the rules have to be clearly spelled out in a written tenancy agreement, the rules have to be fair, and in general the rules can't be changed, even if the agreement says they can.

[sara g]

Looks like ive got some homework to do. My head hurts  :'(
I just dont have the answers to the questions you're asking, so it looks like Im going to have to speak to our Town Clerk to find out. 
Thanks ever so much for your time
Sara

[Unwashed]

The clerk may not understand the situation, they tend to see themselves as all-powerful so talk of tenancies and the like may enrage her.  At the end of the day if the clerk can't produce a management agreement then on the facts of it your management committee rent the site from the council and you are a trustee.  As a trustee you personally own the site lease and you have a legal duty to exercise that ownership in the best interests of your tenants, and if you accidentally surrender the lease, as you might in an unprepared meeting with the clerk, you personally could be liable.

It would be much better to meet the clerk with a firm idea in your own head of what the situation is.  If you can answer thosae questions as best as you can then, for what it's worth, I can tell you what I think.  If you don't know what I'm asking just ask.

[Robert_Brenchley]

They have, over the past 10 or so years turned a blind eye to the 2/3rds cultivated ruling and cockerels on site rule, as long as things were kept tidy and no complaints were recieved, but now they have decided to start enforcing the rules and given everyone 6 months to sort their plots out and get rid of any cockerels. Just seems a little unfair to me.

If they knew about the cocks, and did nothing, they might find it hard to get a court to enforce the rule now. It might be worth getting advice on this.