Another alloment under theat.

[Baldy]

C of E poor as churchmice so need to flog off allotments for housing
SOWA - Save Our Wellesbourne Allotments

[ecudc]

As someone who sits on a church council I’m glad that is not a decision I’d have to make.

Unfortunately churches in the West Midlands are some of the poorest in the country and balancing books are always an issue. There is also a huge amount of pressure on local agencies to release land for housing to help out growing housing crisis (10k homeless in Birmingham alone) and the primary mission of churches has to be growing Christians, not vegetables.

However having said that churches need to think about their local community and their impact and relationship with them plus our responsibility to look after this world.

I wonder if feeling is so strongly against it could you consider crowd funding to buy the land?

[Baldy]

Hmm. Let me think...
Best not go down that route.

On an allotment forum I think it's fair to call out a landowner over the threatened sale of land traditionally used for allotments. The allotment association in question don't sound very happy about it.
Church vs allotment - I'm with David on this one...

[Cadalot]

Balder me too.... The church is the greatest land owner in England next to the railways.

[chris_m]

Balder me too.... The church is the greatest land owner in England next to the railways.

Actually, nowhere near.

I've only found a list of landowners for the UK so far but that has the CofE at 13th - preceded by (in ascending order) Duchy of Cornwall, Duke of Westminster, United Utilities, Duke of Atholl's Trusts, DEFRA, Anders Povlsen, Duke of Buccleugh & Queensbury, RSPB, Crown Estate, MoD, National Trust and, at the top, Forestry Commission.

Although many of those include land in Scotland and Wales (possibly including the CofE) the Duchy of Cornwall and United Utilities are, as far as I'm aware, England only.

https://www.lovemoney.com/gallerylis...wners-revealed

The railways don't even come in the top 50 - which, to be honest doesn't surprise me. In general their portfolio will be long, but it's also rather narrow

Still, to return to the original subject, although the CofE itself is pretty flush, I doubt that many of the individual parishes are.

[bikermike]

I suspect the CofE may have a lot of money washing through it, but when you think of the costs of it's buildings, schools, charity work, pensions for staff etc, I doubt they are that rich over all

[jackarmy]

"under every stone and all that", im pretty sure JC would have wanted his public to use the land for food and...anyway.

[KevinM67]

As numbers are dwindling, would it not be more economical for them to keep the Allotments and sell off their Churches ??

[4Shoes]

I'm for the Allotment holders. It is easy for many organisation to defer their responsibilities by suggesting they need to dispose of land because of....

it may even be that the land was gifted to the church and has limitations on how it can be used. Perhaps that is why they are offering "ora land" at back of site to allotment holders so that they meet conditions of gift.

Conspiracy theory or what.....

All I am saying is look into the history, local plan and object.

[bikermike]

they do (speaking as a member of the Redundant Churches Trust).

At the same time, if an allotment association had a church on it, you'd expect them to sell it before the allotments?

[4Shoes]

Perhaps C0fE are missing a trick here... could closing churches be like closing Bank Branches. There is not the foot fall so members either have to go on line or to their nearest branch

Could also convert the snug in local to be PO M-S and Video church on a Sunday

[Baldy]

My plot is owned by the parish council, though run by us, and our lease is up in about 2 years time. The council is under intense budgetary pressure and the plot site is on prime potential housing land - to be fair the current council have resisted that for some time - but council members change. Ii would suspect that a lot of the plot holders find the plot a mental and physical saviour - I know I do - so if it gets shut down there will be people badly impacted - but of course it won't be covered in any double entry ledger so won't exist (officially). The bottom line eh?

If they do try to push us off then I will be causing a stink - setting up a protest site - commenting here and elsewhere and doing everything I can to 'embarrass' them into changing their position. To my mind that is all that can be done by the 'little people' to change policy of organisations - not "all publicity is good publicity" - so that is why I started this thread - big business too often relies on people not saying anything or thinking that they can do nothing to make a difference and i wish the allotment group in this battle all the best.

[veggiechicken]

Perhaps C0fE are missing a trick here... could closing churches be like closing Bank Branches. There is not the foot fall so members either have to go on line or to their nearest branch

Could also convert the snug in local to be PO M-S and Video church on a Sunday

Apparently, you can now pay into the "collection" contactlessly and card readers are being passed around the congregation. Maybe cash points in the porch will be next.

[bikermike]

if you are going to follow the bank's model, then it's shut all the churches and do phone-churching

your prayer is important to us, please hold...

[4Shoes]

if you are going to follow the bank's model, then it's shut all the churches and do phone-churching

your prayer is important to us, please hold...

0845 772937 - 13p/min
0845 prayer

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