Scottish Allotment Regulations

[Aberdeenplotter]

Up here in Scotland the law says that Local Authorities may make regulations for the management of their allotments and for putting the allotment laws into effect. If they do make regulations then they must go out to full public consultation after publication and then must be confirmed by Scottish Ministers before they become legal. The Scottish Executive has confirmed that no local authority has asked for regulations to be confirmed. In Aberdeen the local authority has said it has no regulations. Total poppycock. The rents as an example are regulated by decisions made in the council chamber so there must be regulations. The Council has directed that the rents will be £x so the council has made a direction.

Guess how a regulation is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary - a rule or directive made and maintained by an authority.

So I think no local authority in Scotland with allotments has legal regulations for rent and all affected tenants will be able to reclaim the rents paid by them. Have a look at the letter I sent to the scottish minister on our webpagehttp://bucksburnallotments.co.uk/latest.aspx.

It would be hugely helpful if all Scottish Allotment holders got in touch with their MSP's about this.

[pdblake]

I don't get what your problem is. Do you have allotment problems or have you just found a loophole that might let you claim your rent back?

Have you thought about what may happen if eveyone does claim their rent back, the hole that will leave in local council finances. Your tax will probably go up (and everyone elses), they will then put in proper regulation and your rent will probably go up too, that is if they don't sell your allotments off to developers to raise the cash to recompense you all.

So, apart from the rent, what allotment trouble do you have?

[Aberdeenplotter]

our problem up here is that allotment rents were increased by 80% across the board without due process of law. That was followed the next year with further increases for tenants of full sized plots which meant that in a 12 month period they had increases of 152%. I'm not concerned about whether this blows a hole in the Council budget. The Council was warned about it. I pay what is legally due. I claim back what has been charged illegally

[pdblake]

I can see your point with the big increases, but you seem to be talking about claiming it all back. Some people will have been paying rent for decades. You are talking about paying back decades of rent for thousands of people all over Scotland.

You might be concerned about the council budget when they sell off your plot to pay the compo bill.

The other thing is, you talk about percentages, just how much is your rent in fact and is it actually excessive?

(just had a look at your site and it's gone up from £27ish to a possible £70) Does seem to have gone up a fair bit tbh. However, that is only a proposed rent. You can still oppose it, but if you're right about the law above then you are talking about claiming back all rents ever claimed, not just the recent increases.

[Aberdeenplotter]

The law of prescription(time barring) will probably kick in although I don't know
if it does if a breach of the law applies. The allotments law which extends back to 1892 is drawn up with a huge amount of protection for allotment holders and a similar degree of supervision of local authorities by government.

It's not a loophole, it is the application of the law and local authorities up here have just been ignoring it.

Our local council has huge budget problems and they thought they had an easy target with plotters. Well they thought wrong. It's an election year coming so the politicians cannot condone the situation.

Our site facilities up here have been described as being some of the worst in Scotland by a senior member of the Scottish Allotments and Gardens Society. Many sites have no water supply and perimeter fencing is non existent. Despite the increases in rents, we are told there is no money to pay for the necessary improvements, indeed we have been told to go and beg money from local supermarkets and the likes. It really is shameful.

Did You check out the letter on our website?

[pdblake]

Did You check out the letter on our website?

I did, and to be honest I got lost in the legalities, but I got the gist of it. The thing is (going by Google anyway), as far as I can tell, rents vary enormously and a lot of sites have little or no facilties too. I even saw some in Edinburgh that cost £250 a year And allotment lists are so long that you either pay it or do without.

Tbh I'd be willing to pay £70 a year for a full sized plot and I think most of the 90 people in front of me on the list likely would too.

[Aberdeenplotter]

Bu---r!! Just typed about a page and it all disappeared. Grrrh. That £250 is for a private site. At £70 , when you add in the cost of fym at £60 a load which is what local farmers were charging this year and seeds etc it quickly becomes more economic to buy veg at Lidls.

We have had to work really hard up here to make any headway. We have had to put up with Council Officers releasing wrong information to the press, Council Officers presenting ficticious information to Councillors, to the conclusions in an Equality and human rights impact assessment being made to fit instead of reflecting the true position. I mean, is the minimum interference charging 200 plotters £1.05 or charging 200 plotters £20. I'll leave you to be the judge of that.

Also when we challenged the increases, we made the point it was not fair to charge more for a half plot than half the rent for a full plot. Bearing in mind the law says the rent must be fair. The Council did not reduce the rent for a half plot to half the rent for a full plot. They increased the rent for a full plot to twice that of a half plot.

It Shows what we are having to cope with.

[Aberdeenplotter]

As allotment rent notices are likely to be sent out by Aberdeen City Council shortly, I think it's appropriate to remind Aberdeen plotters about the legal situation.

John Swinney, Scottish Finance Minister has said in response to a parliamentary question that no Local Authority is entitled to collect rent for allotments using regulations that have not been confirmed by the Scottish Ministers. Aberdeen City Council has not had it's regulation for rent confirmed by the Scottish Ministers and so is not entitled to collect rent for its allotments. The text of the parliamentary question and the answer can be seen by clicking on our website Home or on the parliamentary website.

No-one should pay rent until the Council has its regulations confirmed as required by law and this is an excellent way of applying pressure. We need to make sure we aren't vulnerable to another round of savage rent increases. A repetition of the last increases, 152% in a 12 month period for full plot holders must be prevented.

Also, Aberdeen Council proposes to withdraw our allotment leases and to impose new ones. No allotment holder should accept the new leases. The Council is not entitled to do this. In any event, the regulations in the new leases will not have been confirmed by the Scottish ministers and will not be enforceable. A waste of public money.

[Aberdeenplotter]

In addition to the matter of Allotments Regulations, we recently, via this forum discovered the existence of the English High Court Case - Harwood v Reigate and Banstead Council - which determined that it was illegal to discriminate against allotments by applying higher increases in charges than are applied to to users of other Council owned leisure facilities and also again via this forum we discovered that the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contract Regulations 1999 apply to Allotment Leases.

See our website www.bucksburnallotments.co.uk for our response to the Council's refusal to accept that they are bound by these authorities.

[Hilary B]

While I get the gist of the legal argument (I think), if the allotments are not run under the law, is there any legal obligation on the council to continue making them available at all?
If it is made difficult for the councils to run the allotments, isn't their solution likely to be a decision not to bother, ie to sell up?
I'm not sure how it is possible to compare costings on an allotment with 'other leisure facilities', since an allotment is normally rented by an individual for a prolonged period, whereas most leisure facilities are 'hired' in a totally different manner.
Re half rent for half plot, I think most would see it as reasonable for the rent for half a plot to be A LITTLE more than half the rent for a full plot, there is a little extra admin cost. 60% sounds about right to me, but the exact adjustment would be a mater of opinion.
Anyhow, best of luck, but I hope it doesn't result (as seems all too likely to me) in the loss of allotment space.

[Aberdeenplotter]

In Scotland, local authorities are obliged to provide allotments if there is a clear proven demand for them. Where there are no allotments, they can drag their heels though because no timeline is incorporated within the legislation.

There is no attempt to compare costings. It is the rate of increase in charges that is compared .

Scottish allotments law provides that the rent for ground let for allotments shall be the fair rent for the use of the land for that purpose. If the fair rent for a full plot is x£ , then the fair rent for a half plot is 0.5x£. There is no question of the rent for a half plot being half the fair rent for a full plot plus a bit to cover administration. Our local authorities have to meet the whole costs of administering their allotments without any restriction on the amount of subsidy that would require.

We have a large waiting list here. The Council would be in trouble if it tried to reduce the number of allotments.

Just out of interest, our Council sold an allotment site along with a building a few years back for £685k when the actual value of the property was over £2.9million. See the Audit Scotland report here

http://www.audit-scotland.gov.uk/doc...n_property.pdf

It beggars belief.

It won't be a matter of luck at the end of the day, more a matter of what is fair and just but nonetheless thank you for your best wishes.

[Aberdeenplotter]

No apologies for repeating this post on here as I want to ensure maximum exposure.

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We have different legislation up here in Scotland and one crucial aspect of the law is that to become entitled to collect rent for allotments, a Local Authority must first of all have its regulation for rent confirmed by the Scottish Government after inquiry(full public consultation) and publication. Aberdeen City Council has not done this. Fortunately for Scottish Allotment holders the law makes it clear that any regulations not so confirmed are not legally enforceable.

Really fortunate for me because I received a letter on Saturday telling me my leases have been terminated and giving me notice to quit.

I have responded as follows to the Council

"I refer to you email of 6th January and must express disappointment that I have had no further contact from yourself or from the City Solicitor. It is all the more disappointing because Council Officers have attempted to take enforcement action against me as a result of my withholding rent for my allotments. I have carefully used the word “attempted” as it is clear from the wording of s6(1)Allotments Scotland Act 1892 that regulations that have not been confirmed by the Scottish Ministers are legally unenforceable. You may check the exact wording of the Act here Allotments (Scotland) Act 1892

I have attached a document containing a scanned copy of a letter dated 28th January 2011 in which it states my allotment leases have been terminated and the letter also gives me notice to remove on 31 January 2012. This note did not form part of my response. The copy letter is available to see on our website.Home.

I will make it clear now that I shall not be vacating my allotments and that I do not accept that in the circumstances of this situation that the Council is either entitled to terminate my leases or to give Notice to Quit. In the course of any Court proceedings raised by the Council for recovery of possession of my allotments, that letter of 28 January 2011 shall be produced to show that the notice to quit was given as part of unlawful enforcement proceedings for non-payment of rent. In the circumstances, I do not anticipate any difficulty in having the termination of my leases or the Notice to Quit set aside or having any such court proceedings dismissed.

It escapes me how Council Officers could possibly think it could be lawful to try to evict a tenant who has quite lawfully refused to pay monies which the Scottish Government, via John Swinney Finance Minister, has confirmed a Local Authority is not entitled to collect using regulations which have not been confirmed in terms of s6(1) of the 1892 Act when the Council is in full knowledge that its regulation for rent has not been so confirmed.

I look forward to the Council’s response"

Wish me luck people. We really need to make sure that we never again have huge rent increases foisted upon us without our legal right to have an input to the process which is why I withheld rent in the first place. The Harwood v Reigate case and the Unfair Terms in contracts regulations have been made known to the Council also so we have them in reserve as also the fact that our Council openly increases rents to try to raise money from its allotments without regard to whether or not the resultant rents were the fair rent for the use as per section 10(1)Allotments(Scotland)Act 1950. Note that Scottish legislation is different from England in this respect.

[Caro]

Without judging the pros and cons of your case (though a notice to quit seems somewhat harsh, but predictable) I wish I had your determination and energy when it comes to dealing with councils.

Glasgow City Council has done my head in more than once, and it's the lack of common sense or ability to give you a straight answer, or even not lose their mail that drives me mad.

I'll be interested to hear how you get on, hope it's a happy outcome for everyone.

[Aberdeenplotter]

What I have so desperately tried to achieve is a fair legal rent for our allotments and to have put in place a procedure for determining such a fair rent with future increases being calculated by reference to the Consumer prices index .(By so doing, the Council does not fall foul of the The Unfair Terms in Consumer Contract Regulations 1999 which makes it automatically unfair for the landlord to impose an arbitrary increase in rent. Guidance by the OFT on unfair terms in tenancy agreements indicates that unless increases are linked to such external factors as the RPI or evaluated by an objective person independent of the landlord they may be deemed to be unfair.)
As part of the process, it will be necessary for the Council to have its allotment regulations confirmed at Holyrood. These procedures should have a one off cost and are essential as otherwise the Council cannot enforce any of its allotments regulations.


To have increases of 152% for some over a 12 month period was clearly excessive and uncalled for and the actings of some Council Officers has been diabolical if not illegal. A repeat cannot be countenanced.

I'm quite happy to have this determined in Court