Allotments 4 All

Quote from: Digeroo on January 05, 2012, 22:12:27
How was their average produced is it a weighted average included the numbers of plots involved.  The sheer numbers of Birmingham allotments would weight the results towards their charge.

From your point of view it does blow some of Newbury arguments recomparative pirces out of the water.

From my point of view to find that my cost is only slightly higher than the inter quartile range is quite reassuring.

And whats more your straw pole cost a lot less.

I'm guessing it was meant to be an unweighted mean.  The weighted mean is 18.4p/m² (£4.60 per pole) but the distribution is even more skewed.

So a typical rent is 12.5p to 15.0p range (£3.13 to £3.75 per pole).

And I agree, if it was insightful quality research then it might have been worth the cost, but I think we had a better stab at understanding rents here on A4A.

I think this research is still on going from the blog associated with it as I see a lot of the data is still arriving and most of it well after the article I linked to.

It also shows an interesting difference between councils of the amount of data supplied.
Some returned a lot of their information on allotments even down to policy and the privately v in house run sites in their area.
Whilst others returned next to no data at all.

So I am interested to see if this research is updated and refined with the later data.

Having had a brief glimpse at the data and write-up from the Leicester University research, I agree with Unwashed and Digeroo that it is poor fare for an academic study. Perhaps it will get better ::).

As a simple example, daveyboi points out that the study shows that Runnymede is very expensive. However, the borough contains a mixture of sites ... some totally council-run (as mentioned) ... but others that are self-managed under licence from the borough. The rents of the latter - who set their own - tend to be significantly lower than the council rent. My understanding, a couple of years back admittedly, was that the council was keen for all sites to be self-managed.

Quote from: Digeroo on January 05, 2012, 22:12:27
From your point of view it does blow some of Newbury arguments recomparative pirces out of the water.

Yes.  The nice thing about a big sample is that you can model the population quite accurately, and the unweighted distribution has a good normal profile, so knowing the mean and standard deviation I can confidently say that, at £6.94 per pole, Newbury's rent is in the top 12% nationally.  Nice to know they can do something well.

Ill never understand the size of a pole,why cant it be brought into modern times?

If it help a 10 pole allotment is approx 250 sq metre.

Looking at Runnymedes website one of their self managed sites is showing a price of £32 for 5 poles which I make as 25.6p a sq mtr and a reduction for wrinklies so average will be even lower.

Many thanks unwashed for your analysis of the figure.

Quote from: Digeroo on January 06, 2012, 14:27:16
Many thanks unwashed for your analysis of the figure.

Thank you. :)

my rent is nearly £60 now but that does include water at £26

If you're faced with an allotment rent increase you might be interested in the successful outcome we achieved at Hill Rise Allotment Association in St Ives. Faced with up to 100% increase, we achieved an inflation matching increase and a promise of same for the future plus investment in the site... although the latter bit never made the Town Council's minutes!

To read what research we used and the approach we took click the link below. Hope it helps, John

http://allotmentheaven.blogspot.com/2010/11/increase-in-allotment-rents.html

Quote from: Digeroo on January 06, 2012, 14:27:16
If it help a 10 pole allotment is approx 250 sq metre.

Looking at Runnymedes website one of their self managed sites is showing a price of £32 for 5 poles which I make as 25.6p a sq mtr and a reduction for wrinklies so average will be even lower.

Many thanks unwashed for your analysis of the figure.

10 poles is 302.5 square yards,  250 square metres is 298 square yards. Them five square yards might be important! You could get another row of brassicas in there !!  :P

if cost is an issue then you best increase your production to compensate or increase the efficiency of you plot in the way of spacing and succession crops.

I guess my rent this year doesn't include water, as someone has stolen all the copper water pipes on the allotment. :(
]

Just got my bill, Gone up from £36 for my 17 poles to £40 all in,  10% increase to £2.35/pole, except my missus is over 65 so we get pensioner rate, we pay £20, ie £1.17/pole (3.8p sq/yd). Cant beat that for value.  Bear in mind in Lincolnshire building land is cheap, agricultural land is cheaper than Mahattan was when the indians sold it for 6 bottles of whiskey and a crate of Winchesters.

Birmingham went up from £24 to £40 this year and ext year will be £75 (I think).  I suppose they had to find the redundancy money for all the staff taking VR from somewhere.

Fortunately our plot is run by the parish council, and half the Parish Council have plots, so there not going to jack up the rents on themsleves. Vested Interests FTW.

Looks as if we were lucky , just a 5% increase 7 poles with water costs £30.40.