COULDN'T believe my eyes

[SarzWix]

If it is, surely the council have a duty of care to remove & decontaminate the whole site? Has anyone asked the question?

No, they don't NPK, not if ours is anything to go by. They just tell you to wrap it in a double thickness of plastic and take it to the nearest appropriate Household Waste Site

Lavender Lou, if it was just the mess and undergrowth to clear, I'd suggest you roll your sleeves up and get stuck in. However with the obvious security problems, I think you're right to say you need to start a campaign to get the council involved. It would be heartrending to put in all that effort and find that the plots had been vandalised/robbed/burnt down!
I would imagine that the local Primary Care Trust would be interested in the first of your pictures - I'm pretty sure that some of that stuff is a specialist mattress to prevent pressure sores, which costs a lot of money!

Get the local papers involved, and write to GYO mag and any other gardening magazines you can. I know that Sheffield has a Community Radio Station (sheffieldlive i think) and also a BBC radio station who may help or at least report the story. Don't forget your local MPs too. Also try getting in touch with NSALG for advice on how to regenerate derelict allotments.

I wish you good luck for your campaign.

[krazy_krok]

yes it is ASBESTOS and the whole site is covered in it and my OH says that you have to have masked and white overalls to clear it all...

I'm a Fire fighter and deal with asbestos quite alot and yes it is the councils duty to remove. Don't go near it as it's broken, when it's moved microscopic glass like particles become airborn and when you breath these in they stick to your lungs and can never be removed(leading to asbestosis-a killer!)

Recently took on a plot not worked for 10 years. Get hold of a good petrol strimmer with wide handles and shoulder strap(your back'll thank you). I got 1 from argos £70 Spear and Jackson. Then have a bonfire and burn all the weeds and wood you'll find(taking care stay with it till it dies down to a smolder and not too near anything that will catch fire through radiated heat). I used a rotovator to remove the rest and level the land. Then covered with membrane(£30 delivered off ebay for 100m x 1.5m) as the rotovator chops up the weeds and they'll come back.

It's hard work but you wouldn't believe the satisfaction when it starts to take shape.

[krazy_krok]

Oh and the photo after i burned it all off!

[Nicos]

The council should be ashamed of themselves 'allowing' that to happen.
I know they have 'no' spare money allocated for allotments, but it is their duty to provide them and I'd consider that to mean in a usable state.

Why not contact the papers and see if they can feature the site and try to encourage peeps to take on a few of the plots. You're clearly not the only one who didn't know there were so many available.
Perhaps a positive approach is the best one...I'd be wary of irritating the council too much though....they could always sell the land to raise more cash ( mind you there's less building work going on at the moment)- they could argue there was no call for the plots!

Looks like you're doing a fantastic job...credit to you!!

[Kayt]

Good for you rising to the challenge Lavender Lou but as others have said it could be worth involving local press and the gardening mags. What about people like Jamie Oliver etc who are, quite rightly, encouraging the Grow Your Own culture? Also there may be some community groups that maybe interested in a plot and with their input finance maybe available for the security etc. Good luck with it all and the satisfaction when you eat those first veggies will be amazing. Keep us all posted

[lavender lou]

Hi all the allotments are £19 a year and £42 a year with a water supply that is if you can keep a tap!

i have just rang the Allotments Officier for Sheffield City Council and he said that they are currently in talks in having the land cleared and getting the secruity needed for the plots and the site.
He didn't know about all that had been dumped there so i have sent him photos to show him whats there.

But he kept saying to me that people are taking on the allotments yeah there are 6 plots that people are gardening and so that leaves 75 available so he said to ring him up in a few months to see how the progress on the site is coming along.

So i then said to him i will be going up weekly myself to see the progress for myself.

So i'm giving them 2 weeks to have the stuff removed on the plots and if its not then i'm going to the papers and the local radio and doing everything i can to get it back to a Allotment site everyone will want to use and be proud off..

[Nicos]

Good for you!!!!!

[chuffa]

Why not get grow your own to ivestigate, let Sheffield City Council know that you are doing a bit for the journal and that pictures may be published. Mention about the asbestos, it might shock them into doing something for the good.

[bluemoon]

LL, we have an active Allotments Federation in Sheffield. I will dig out the info, but it might be Sunday before I can get to our site for the rep's number. I have PM'd you.
Best Wishes, BM.

[jaykay]

I know you said there was and 2 and a half year waiting list for other sites near you. Could you get any of the people on those waiting lists interested in taking a plot on this site? An article or letter in your local paper could generate a lot of interest. The more plots that are being worked the better the site will be and the vandalism/dumping may stop if there are more people around. I really admire your determination to do something about this. Best of luck and keep us all informed of your progress.

[fwuffydragon]

Our allotment society managed to get some money from the council to get an overgrown bit cleared off and fenced up so that we could have some more plots available, and I don't think it was in as bad a state as yours looks.

They got in someone to remove all the rubbish and clear it all down to ground level and get out the big tree stumps. When I got my plot it was a bare piece of land covered in tractor tracks, with a million bramble roots underneath! However, it was so much easier than starting with a greenery infestation!

As per previous advice, don't touch the asbestos. This requires specialist removal.

Good luck with it!

[JanieB]

Apart from embarrassing your council into doing something ( and I totally agree with that) you could also work WITH them.

I suggest contacting the council clerk and finding out which of their committees is responsible for allotments. Find out the procedure for making a statement to that committee and get yourself along to their next meeting and have your say.

Think of some ways in which the council and yourself (with some volunteers) can improve the situation. When all is said and done, the council HAVE to provide allotments and are gaining no revenue when they aren't let.

And I concur with jaykay that getting the others on the waiting list involved may move things along alot faster.

You could be the start of the new "Allotment Committee", one that is forward thinking and proactive rather than stick-in-the-mud and fuddy duddy .

[wiccanlou]

I have just done a course on asbestos awareness and all I can say is do not touch it!! There are so many different types of safety gear you need and also you need to know whether it is brown, blue or white asbestos so you know what protection to wear and so on. Myself personally being an electrician there is nothing in my job that I fear more than Asbestos and the illnesses it causes.
I hope that the council pull their socks up and do something about the site as it looks like a goldmine waiting to be exploited to the benefit of the local community.
I wish you the best of luck in all your endevours.

[George Gray]

Council Responsibilities

The Council has a responsibility to provide allotment sites and to provide them in good condition. Often they offer to clear,weedkill and rotovate as well. Sounds like the Council are putting this site forward so they can claim they are fulfilling their duty but are not following through with their other responsibilities.
They'll not get many people to take it in its current state and by the sound of it, until it gets well populated, the level of theft and vandalism will be very high.

[bluemoon]

George, Sheffield is well supplied with allotment sites and the allotments officer is usually very helpful if approached about a problem. Unfortunately in the recent past allotments were non too popular and many became very overgrown. In some cases whole sites seem to have disappeared under bramble, but there would have been little point in using limited resources on them when there was little likelihood that anyone would take them on. The council do not clear them now for the simple reason that people seem to value them less if they haven't had to put in the graft of doing it themselves and frequently give up the first time a weed shows its face. (humans eh? never did understand them) Anyway, if LL approaches the allotments office they will probably sort her problem out - though it might not be done next week as they have a limited budget and man-power and have to prioritize. Having said that a site strewn with asbestos sounds like a priority to me, especially as it doesn't seem very secure, meaning that members of the general public can gain access. Sadly we even have to protect the vandals from hazardous waste.