Is this the worst site in the country?

[nick the grief]

It is LJ but the £4.5K is what it will cost to have half the hedge laid & the gaps replanted etc The £2k is to do works to tidy the site up (our road way isn't much better than yours with the sounds of it) and then someof outr plot don't have sheds on them so we have put in to get sheds for these for the benefit of the new tenants.

We still have a load of other works to do but I think it will take us about 5 years to get it to where we would like to be. Unfortunately the last 10 years have just been keeping the site open as there wasn't the people using it but now GYO is the new whatever .....

[robD]

Hello RobD, I have to confess I am a bit lost here. I'm sure you said you were paying £27.50 a year in rent for your plot. I make that 52p a week. I gather from your posts you were not happy with what you got for your money. I'm blowed if I know what can be counted as not good value for money at 52p a week. You now say the Council has awarded £300 of council tax payers money to help, but you will carry on moaning. As I said - lost, lost, lost.

Guess you missed that smilie at the end of the message...

If we're looking at statistics though, the £300 was for the site. There are approximately 170 plots on that site, which equates to less than £2 each. OK so only about 90 of them are taken, so lets say £3.50 each.

The site has been largely abandoned by the council for many years, possibly up to 20 years if reports are to be believed. £300 to sort out 20 years of neglect, £15 a year, less than 10p a plot per year.

As you say 52p a week is good value for money, but I don't set the price, offer them as allotments with certain facilities and set out certain aims for their service and then not meet them. We're paying rent for a service they are not delivering on and £300 isn't going to sort that out.

As you can see from Nick's message they are having to spend £4.5k just to sort out a hedge. Seems like the council got away lightly here!

So what's the secret of getting that much money Nick?

Rob

[dwrudd]

Hi Rob,

I actually don't think that yours is the worst site
After twelve months on the waiting list, and 11 calls to the local councils five different departments who all do sod all about allotments, I finally got one of them to tell me where they where, or the general area anyway! they were not totally sure !

I had totally missed them at first beacause there seemed to be a small shanty town of scruffy lockups and dog pens in the vicinity but eventually I met a chap at one of the lockups who informed me that these were indeed the 'allotments'.

No one is growing anything, ( other than stuff they can smoke ), many keep their greyhounds on site as there is a track 500yds up the road even though the chap freely admitted that they were not really meant to and it has a general air of downtown Beruit.

The quaint little boundries have sprung up as eight foot high castle walls made from old doors, chain link fence and any other rusting junk laying around and there are little angelic brats all around checking to see if anything isn't nailed down properly.

I jest not, there are two 'plots' unused and the chap said that anyone who comes down to see them just walk away with their head down. One is full of used syringes the other backs onto some terraced houses who are up in arms as they don't want that type on here. Can you blame them.

I left feeling very dispondant but spoke to a lady who suggested that I go to the other side of town and try another site which I had never heard of. I nearly didn't bother.

The next site was enough to lift my spirits and refresh my faith that all is not that bad in the world. A wonderfully kept site of over sixty plots, self managed with a very freindly group of chaps only too willing to chat and welcome me to their 'family of gardeners' There is a small waiting list, but I am informed that it won't be long and I should get a call. They have an established social side, a barefoot vicar and a local council member who is always keen to help with projects. We even left with a bag of apples which Mrs.D made into a fabulous pie.

Add to this that it is closer to my home, and set next to a local beaty spot and I could cry.

I suppose that there is always a silver lining, its just sometimes you have to look for a bit longer to find it.

Darren.

[nick the grief]

Struth Darren, I almost threw myself out the window It is a shame when they could be used for something so much better.

Still looks like your onto a good one now.

How did we manage it Rob?

Easy I happened to e-mail the BTCV about our hedge & it went from there really. They peut us in touch with a charity trust that looks after these things & lots of e-mails & forms & meetings later it looks like we've cracked it.

There is a load of things you can apply for it's just having the time to do it. ALso we are self governing (and have been for about the last 30 years I think) so that helps. It may be more difficult in your position as the council runn the site so any funding you applied for they may just say well thats up to the council but if you were self governing it would be dfferent.

The thing to watch is the council may try it on and charge you for all 170 plots ignoring the fact that only 90 are used e.g £4000 pa as opposed to the £2000 they are getting now. We pay the same now as we did last year when only 40 or 50 out of the 65 were used, so you would have to watch that especially as they won't need the fulltime person to look after them ( not that they do anyway) so you could argue that they are saving money

But it you could get away with paying say £2000 for the year & then get a load of grants (some may even come from the EEC via the council ) you could improve things enough to get the other let then you can start doing things.

[Alice]

I'm pleased for you DWRudd. Sounds like you might have found something good. I like the sound of self managed. I think that's how you get things done. I'm not having a go at anybody, but I just don't see why council tax payers should pay for other peoples hobbies. I'd be happy to give them 52p a week to come and cut my hedges, lay my paths, provide a shed and greenhouse and whatever other demands I made on them. People should get together to make their site the best in the country - by their own efforts.

[Lesley Jay]

Alice our three sites are self managed. We pay the council a few thousand pounds each year in rent so I think it is reasonable to expect some kind of assistance with the maintenance of the sites.

[Peter]

Effort in = results out.

Like Nick, but different, bloody minded persistance has paid off for the third year running.

Put in a costed proposal, indicating what work you will do yourself.
Then stick to it.

Much to my surprise this years proposal sailed through.

Got on the doorstep today, big parcel of bare-root hawthorn and dogrose, well barbed wire is soo non-PC these days.

Due to get a call from the local fencing man to arrange delivery of £900+ chainlink materials.

Means I'll have something to do in the winter months with my council funded posthole boring corkscrew (peter-powered). This lot should see off the religious piece of fence and start protecting the too-short piece.

And all this for two pound a rod rent and remuneration of under £60 a year as site agent, starting this year.

[Jigje]

Hello RobD, I have to confess I am a bit lost here. I'm sure you said you were paying £27.50 a year in rent for your plot. I make that 52p a week. I gather from your posts you were not happy with what you got for your money. I'm blowed if I know what can be counted as not good value for money at 52p a week. You now say the Council has awarded £300 of council tax payers money to help, but you will carry on moaning. As I said - lost, lost, lost.

I feel this is a bit harsh Alice, Rob seems to have put a lot of effort into sorting out very big problem, it seems Quixotic to take a plot on such a site, let alone take responsibility for the site as a whole, he is obviously very "have a go" as he has put considerable effort in.

For 27:50 the council could still have put some effort in, I suppose its far too small an amount to fix problems like there are on the site, but it is too large to pay and recieve nothing. It should cover the water being fixed as that is the waste of a resource and probably in very large quantities even in one day. I am guessing the charge was arrived at pretty arbitrarily, and may be a reflection on what people pay for the better managed sites. If the site was up together that 27:50 per person might actually pay for something, as it is there are far too few plots taken for it to be used for anything.

I have a suspicion you may encounter a lot of whingers who complain and do nothing and are treating Rob as such, when he isn't, in fact he's my hero.

On the other hand maybe I am being too sensitive.

[October]

That definitely sounds like the worst site to me. Good luck - you will need it - they ought to let you have it free !