Don't shoot me, I'm just the messenger........

[Snadger]

Allotment Secretaries hat on now.........

We had some complaints abour smoke at the allotments from woodburners and fires. We put notices up and asked everyone to act sensibily.

Just had an email from our landlord to say there's been another complaint of smoke pollution phoned in from some local residents!

Been told to get our act together or else there will be a total ban on burning rubbish or using woodburning stoves.

Bugggger............I've got to relay this message to the lads on Saturday and I bet yours truly gets it in the neck!

Sod this................so much for actually WORKING on my allotment at the weekend!

Deffo thinking about chucking this Hon Sec malarkey!

[Hans Mum]

its a thankless task Snadger from a fellow Sec.....we're overlooked by houses and got complaints, so we've banned fires all together now, we just have organised communal fires 2/3 times a year, everyone just stacks their burnable stuff in a designated area and t'commitee organises the rest, its stopped the complaints

[SarzWix]

Bum Snadger
What is the actual law for bonfires? Are the locals justified in their complaints (I mean, is anyone breaking the law?) Would it be possible to pacify them by having set times/days of the week for the burning of rubbish? Or a weather vane, and only have them when the wind is blowing away from the complaining householders?

I dunno, you seem to be getting a lot of cr*p in the job recently...

[di]

All the best for Saturday!
Sooo don't envy you the job of sec...if it's really starting to get at you....maybe time to offer it to someone else...(maybe to one of the moaners,who'll be absolutely horrified at the thought).Good Luck with it!

[Paulottie]

Got to say I can't understand this one at all....OK I can see that in summer when everyone is out in their garden that billowing smoke from a green leaf bonfire is just rude. I believe consideration for neighbours is vital and setting out a few CLEAR time/season rules sensible.

.....but Woodburners in the middle of winter!!!!....what's to complain about? I can't see that as unreasonable....Sounds like you've got some folk with nothing better to do but moan as neighbours..... Still as you say it will mean time spent explaining and investigating whether you have some dinlow incinerating plastic and tyres down there

We don't have sheds but I'm quite swept up in the romantic notion of having a woodburner.

[Two_Sheds]

I can see both sides of this. We get complaints from the council estate about bonfires, even when we don't have any!
They just like to have a moan, to be honest.

When I cleared my plot last year, I had tons of dry stuff, wood, branches etc (a lot of which had been thrown over from the estate). Realising it would take months if not years to rot down, I burned it. (I'm not a fan of burning actually, it is better to compost if you can)

It was really funny to race the old girl who liked to put her washing out when I had a bonfire, so she could complain! It was February, and her washing would not have dried anyway ... but there she was, hoisting it up as soon as she saw a whiff of smoke, even when I raced up there at the crack of dawn some days.

[Two_Sheds]

By the way, there is no actual law against bonfires, but your site will have rules. You are just requested to be sensible and considerate.

Something that doesn't apply to owners of barbecues it would seem. The stench of paraffin and charred flesh is worse (to me) than woodsmoke.

[jackie j]

We are allowed bonfires but only after 4 pm.

[HeyWayne]

I know we're not allowed fires on the plot during certain months, when there's a certain letter in the month, and between particular hours. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure of what the exact restrictions are, so each time I check the rules. Problem is, not everyone is so conscientious.

You have my sympathies dude.

[krazy_krok]

I'm a fireman and i can second that it aint against the law to burn things off. There's an old wifes tale that your supposed to do it in the evening because of people washing drying. We get called to the allotments loads by local residents and unless the fire looks like it's going to spread or is unoccuppied were happy to let it burn. Always take into consideration direction of the wind, don't leave unoccuppied and make sure you have a means of preventing it spreading(water) and you should be ok. If you can leave burning till the evening it's for the better too. Quite often i have returned to the caller and said that we are an emergency service and any further wasting of our time it'll be them who will be reported. They obviosly wasn't expecting someone from the vine to turn up!!!!

[BrideXIII]

there is no law national, but there are council by-laws and they are the ones you have to watch out for.
contact your local council and ask them what their rules are.

my mums council is no fires between 7am and 7pm.
our council is none between 6am and 8pm
and my housing association is no fires at all *shrug*

to avoid charges of smoke pollution you might want to contact the local enviromental officer as well.
I do believe however that you should be allowed to burn suitable waste without having to put up with that sort of nonsense, especially in the winter, i mean do these people avoid having barbeques so as not to annoy people? i bet they don't

[Snadger]

The gist of the official letter from the council is................any more complaints from local residents, and as we have done before with other sites, we will just ban any type of burning including wood burning stoves, bonfires and braziers.

Basically if we've got a complainer wer'e in a no win situation, especially if the complainer knows this is the Councils stance!

I personally am not bothered as I very rarely have a bonfire and can take stuff home to burn it if need be, and only light my woodburner when I have a bit of work to do in the greenhouse to make it more comfortable.

The top and bottom of it is we are at the Councils mercy..........if they say jump, we say "How high?"

[screwbylil]

were only allowed to burn from 1st nov to 1st march and only if wind is not blowing in direction of houses seems to work

[BrideXIII]

not allowed to burn anything, at all, as per the planning permission for the site being turned into an allotment.

When trying to get the site up and running at christmas a small bonfire was lit one day on the ajoining parsih council owned land where the communal shed is going, as they were clearing scrub- someone lodged a complaint with the parish council. Fortunately the PC pointed out that it was their land, not the allotment site itself, thus they can burn on it all they want. Not going to be a regular occurance anyway.


Not allowed to compost household waste either, because people objected to the site on grounds that it would 'encourage rats' - we asked if that meant we had to peel the veggies before we took em home... Think we have come to the arangement that most common composting things are ok, just not cooked food, meat and general rubbish.

we have some lovely restrictions that make life hard, no buildings over 76cm height, no ponds, no vehicle access... but it just makes for more inventive solutions. I've heard someones looking into creating an underground greenhouse

someone complained the compost bin broke the 76cm rule. some people just REALLY like complaining.

at this point you really just want to curl up on the floor and belly laugh, 'tesocspeople' suck big time don't they?

makes me all the more determined to break every rule in the book as often as i can