two come along at once? garden plot?

[green thing]

I would love to find out the council are not saying how many plots or size just you can have a plot
I don't want end up with a token gesture 6ftx6ft plot and end up being removed from the waiting list on the other plots in the area
as paulottie says its for growing food for your family not a hamster
I've got a legal right to an allotment not a garden plot and I'm sick of all the sub letting and queue jumping and lack of commitment from the council to provide ALLOTMENTS when there is a huge demand in the area for them !!

[Paulottie]

I think it got something to do with the size of the plots
the garden area is approximately 200ft x400ft anyone know how many allotment plot you
will get on this site ?

thanks

approx 30 plots.

As I said, by law, an allotment is 10 rods. a linear rod is 5.5 yards therefore squared is 30.25 sq yards x10= 302.5 sq yards. (About 250 sq metres in new money)

So 300 x9 (to convert that to square feet)= 2700 sq ft divided into (200x400=)80,000 sq ft= approx 30 standard allotments.

ie 200x400ft is roughly 9000 sq yards so 30 x 300 square yards.

following me? .....or snoozed off yet?

I understand that with demand high and modern pressures some busy folk (or even older less active folk) might reasonably think that smaller plots are perfect for them. Fine.....take a half plot or share one! or set up sites that contain small veg patches IN ADDITION to allotments.

However, I am very against the council eroding one of the few civil rights left to the taxpayer. An 'allotment' is a right and a standard...it is not a random sized 'garden' at inflated rates.

I saw an article on local news regarding just this morning saying Ringwood council are now offering tiny plots. and lauding it as a piece of forward responsive thinking. OF COURSE it saves them providing more land for the 66 people on the waiting list!

[zazen999]

I would love to find out the council are not saying how many plots or size just you can have a plot
I don't want end up with a token gesture 6ftx6ft plot and end up being removed from the waiting list on the other plots in the area
as paulottie says its for growing food for your family not a hamster
I've got a legal right to an allotment not a garden plot and I'm sick of all the sub letting and queue jumping and lack of commitment from the council to provide ALLOTMENTS when there is a huge demand in the area for them !!

Don't have a go at me chuck!!!

The only way to find out what they are offering is to ask them.

[Paulottie]

There, there sensitive.....no one was having a go at you.

Maybe the only way to find out what is on offer is to go along....It's not always that easy to arrange a meeting though.

The total issue we were enjoying discussing here is not as simple as that. It is very important principal that we defend the existence of common land for EVERYBODY to be able feed themselves should they wish. The erosion of this right by stealth over many years by successive councils has led to an unacceptable situation.

[SarzWix]

In actual fact, it is the abandonment by the great British public of any desire to have or look after allotments for the last 2 decades that has led to this state of affairs. If people hadn't decided that growing food was a) dirty, and b) somehow 'below' them, then all the allotments created in World War II (except the carved parks and school fields) would still be in use now, and councils wouldn't have been left with big swathes of totally overgrown land to deal with...

More on this later, my buzzer is going off for dinner...

[Paulottie]

Sadly, that's very true Sarah...and I hope that this whole regeneration turns out to be more than a passing fad. Many sites were more about old codgers hiding in their sheds to escape their nagging wives; But there were still some allotmenteers that had several plots to just keep the sites going (who are now being hounded to give their land up for all the newcomers; rather than gratitude for keeping the whole thing rolling.)

Nevertheless, (luckily) the law and principal remains the same, inspite of ever increasing demand on land for housing (or profit.) the recession and lack of interest by many who would rather buy shrink wrapped Kenyan beans and mangos in January. Now the tide is turning and people have finally realized their importance it is time to make the councils live up to their responsibility. I guess it is important to build a brighter future than dwell on the mistakes of the selfish consumerism and rampant rape of the world resources inspired by the Thatcher era.

sorry....got me on my pet subject now!!!

[SarzWix]

I wouldn't argue with you on many of those points
But in this instance, a plot is being offered, and without any knowledge of how big it will be or any other details other than it having a different name, is being whinged about... My answer remains the same - go and look at it! And if it turns out to be tiny then is the time to object

[zazen999]

And even if it is smaller than the 'recognised plot size'; we don't have families quite as big any more do we; so perhaps the guide sizes NEED to be whittled down.

You can grow an incredible amount of veg in a smaller plot, if you really have to. Esp if there is only 1 or 2 of you.

Do we know how big it actually IS yet?

[Paulottie]

Don't disagree at all Sarah. Obviously the plot must be inspected.

Although I was initially responding to the 'if I take a smaller 'garden' plot I may taken of the 'allotment' list' comment my thrust was much more generic

I got a bit carried away on the technicallities/semantics of 'allotment' 'garden' and 'leisure' garden. As I said I think all are great ideas and may well suit some folk more than a full blown lottie. My only worry is that councils, given 1/2 the chance will water down the noble principal of 10 rods of land at a peppercorn to feed your family.

It is an ancient right stretching back to Winstanley and the diggers revolt. One that in a just as poinient in this commercial age where the supermarkets have far too much power. Really important not to let it be diluted.

[Paulottie]

And even if it is smaller than the 'recognised plot size'; we don't have families quite as big any more do we; so perhaps the guide sizes NEED to be whittled down.

You can grow an incredible amount of veg in a smaller plot, if you really have to. Esp if there is only 1 or 2 of you.

Take a 1/2 plot then. Fortuitously 'we' don't all have to live by what you imagine we need 'do we.'

[SarzWix]

That's where I agree with you Paul; at the moment, the village just up from me is battling to retain the rights to a stretch of moorland above the village that has been 'common land' to the inhabitants of the Parish for ever. We had peat-digging rights up there when we lived in the village (although we never availed ourselves of it) and there was a chap a few doors up that kept a little flock of sheep on there. Anyway, what I'm saying in a convoluted way, is that I agree that we should be hanging onto this right to land-use that was hard won after Enclosure took away common-land.
But unless we are prepared to be hugely activist about it, and start setting up committees, and land clearing initiatives, and hunting down farmers/land-owners willing to sell/lease land to the councils etc, etc, etc. then, we have to be willing to accept whatever growing space we are lucky enough to be offered; because a lot of the councils don't have the inclination (or the money) to do it themselves. And that's because of the neglect of, or desire for, allotments over the last few decades.

Eventually, it's going to sink in that local food production will be essential, and the situation will have to change...

[Jeanied]

Now I'm feeling guilty being one person with two plots. However I have realised that I don't have a proper sized allotment at all - so maybe my two plots equate to one proper one!
My maths lets me down, Paulottie - all our allotments on my side of the site are 22 metres by 5.5 metres - approx 121 sq m. So how does that match up to the standard?

[SarzWix]

I've got 2 plots too jeanie, but I took on the second one after it was turned down by people on the waiting list because it was 'too overgrown'... Tisn't now

And none of our plots meet the 'standard' size. Some of them are bigger and some smaller, where the few plotholders that there were in the 80s and 90s pinched a few feet here and there from the next door plots! So mine together actually equates to about a plot and two-thirds.

[Paulottie]

10 Rods is 302.5 sq yards, or in new money, 250 square metres....about the size of a tennis court or penalty area.

[Jeanied]

Ha, so now I don't feel guilty anymore Paulottie - I have the equivalent of just under one full allotment! Not greedy at all. Just industrious (and generous with the produce!)
Anyone for tennis?