Marching Orders

[gingerbilly]

It's amazing......everything thats municipal is part of our everyday life...be it public: police/fire/ambulance, transport, parks, beaches, gardens, bowling greens, golf courses, football, rugby, cricket, swimming pools, athletic tracks, allotments, grass verges, graveyards, roads, paths.... etc etc etc .......basically any general "public" pastime is municipal and it's a requirement.

The secret for me was to get the local council to allow you (the public) to run it through a proper organisation of public like minded people.....(not private people) you may have to form a club.....you may have to have an acceptable council agreed constitution for the club that you form.......but it's yours for the taking as a like minded group of people.....you cant do it alone.

Once you are formed and accepted by your council and within their rules, all your problems are then presented to your Council meetings on your behalf by a paid council official.....and whether they have a big budget or a small budget, you are now part of that decision making......get yourself an allotment club formed with the people on your site and get your problems addressed by your council.....if you do it properly.....it works.....it took me a fair few years with a public golf club ....but it did work.

You need committed like minded people to make it work .......otherwise it wont.......and your elected officials will not go along with it.

good luck

[mrgrower]

Hi Gingerbilly

The people in charge have been recruited by the council to get the garden club up and running to do that they will be bringing in the local naughty boys to tidy it all up at the same time the guys in charge will ensure the rent is paid hopefully a reasonable price and they will be looking for funding etc. On our site we are not allowed fires nor is there a facility to get rid of rubbish so this has been dumped over the fence by my plot I have tried to make it look tidy by dumping all my sods of couch grass and other weeds over the top of the rubbish which it does look better and will encourage growth but we desperately need a facility for getting rid of broken glass etc. We just need rules in place and new blood to regenerate the existing plots.

[gingerbilly]

Hi Gingerbilly

The people in charge have been recruited by the council to get the garden club up and running to do that they will be bringing in the local naughty boys to tidy it all up at the same time the guys in charge will ensure the rent is paid hopefully a reasonable price and they will be looking for funding etc. On our site we are not allowed fires nor is there a facility to get rid of rubbish so this has been dumped over the fence by my plot I have tried to make it look tidy by dumping all my sods of couch grass and other weeds over the top of the rubbish which it does look better and will encourage growth but we desperately need a facility for getting rid of broken glass etc. We just need rules in place and new blood to regenerate the existing plots.

Hi mrgrower mate....you need an elected allotment club run by the everyday users........until thats in place you've got no chance other than listening to what they currently tell you....which is compost....it's your right to have like minded people in charge of a municipal plot....

[alldigging]

On our site we are not allowed fires nor is there a facility to get rid of rubbish so this has been dumped over the fence by my plot I have tried to make it look tidy by dumping all my sods of couch grass and other weeds over the top of the rubbish

these weeds will grow and then the rubbish will be embedded in them.

You don't need to have a fire to get rid of rubbish. If it won't rot then take it to your bin at home or to the tip. Or organise a skip between you all. Yes there's a cost to that but dumping rubbish doesn't solve the issue.

Putting weeds over a fence is an awful idea. they'll grow and creep back.
Compost them. All of them. I opened some bags of 'nasty weeds' yesterday and they're very well rotted now.

And dumping by a fence builds up the level which makes it easy for people to climb over!

I saw someone throwing stuff over the fence at the end of our plot. That is someone's garden and when he discovers the stuff he will quite rightly do his nut. I challenged the person throwing stuff and they basically didn't care and carried on. The top of the fence is chipped there now.
And the stuff they were throwing could have been useful rubble for things.

Rubble can be reused.
Glass and tins go in the bin
Wood rots or goes to the tip.
Weeds compost.

[mrgrower]

Hi alldiggimg there is far to much rubbish to move and I take all mine away the idea I had was to bury it which has worked out well it honestly looks a lot better than it did. I don't mind the weeds as I accept I need to keep them in check I need to ensure that the other people don't dump anymore stuff over the fence. I have made a weed bath today which is a bin half full of water and the weeds thrown in to drown and rot it's hoped I can use the water as a feed too. Gingerbilly I hear you but to be honest the guys there wont bother they just want to get on with it and to be honest after listening to the politics recently and my own experience I will keep an eye on whats happening but for now I just want to get my allotment sorted.

[binley100]

I talked to a womsn last weekend who'd moved from our site as she'd moved house and got an allotment at the bottom of her garden........22 tons of rubbish she has removed so far including a concrete sectional garage that she found buried and she still has an old gh to dig out and remove.....probably this rubbish was not buried but has become so with the passage of time ...

[mrgrower]

This is only a small area as it is over a fence and land belongs to the railway I was told that if I attempted to gain access even to remove the rubbish
1. I'd be done for criminal damage as i'd have to cut through the fence
2. I'd be done for trespass.
3. I would not be insured.
4. I'd be thrown of my plot as I would be drawing unwanted attention or something along those lines?

So no matter which way I approach this I will be held responsible in some way so I have had a word with the relevant people who have stated they will be adding a rule that no stuff should be dumped however they accept that the council have a responsibility to provide means of disposal. So lets see what happens They have however stated that as they see it any soil dumped on the rubbish will support growth and make the area look tidier. By the way the black bucket you can see in the last picture was actually thrown over there by one of the other allotment guys as I was discussing the dumping issue with the people running the garden club??? I just can't win

[mrgrower]

Update to the dumping issue. It seems the garden club are getting in on the act now When I got on the site this morning there was a large old wire fencing panel that had been rusting on their area dumped over the fence I managed to salvage it for possibly a climber for runner beans. To add insult to injury they where dumping their couch grass next to my covered couch grass mountain When I inquired as to them covering it they stated they had nothing to cover it with so basically they are dumping it and leaving it to seed which in turn will affect my plot I'm getting totally fed up and it has nothing to do with hard work I'm having to put in. to add to that I spent the morning ordering a new birth certificate as work informed us that under the governments new rules we have to prove we have the right to work here? and I have been told if they don't get the proof by next week I will be suspended without pay until they get either a passport or full birth certificate. Then on top of that the window cleaner came of his ladders and has wiped out the guttering which was only replaced a few months back. can this day get better?? Good news water is on at the allotment.