Are Hot Beds Allowed

[Olorin2001]

All this talk about health and safety, duty of care - begins with The Heath & Safety at Work Act 1974 - I would draw your attention to (At Work)
It never had any legal standing outside of the workplace.
Common Sense, while now a rare commodity, should rule supreme.
In my experience when someone try's citing Health and Safety it's because they want to stop people enjoying themselves, or because they don't want to do something, or disagree with an activity, as long as there is an element of common sense I tend to ignore them.
I believe that most sites have a rule about not going onto other peoples plots, and of children being kept under control, etc. etc. if the site is fenced, and with something marking any deep temporary holes, your duty of care has been done.

[Sheneval]

I can't understand why anyone would want to dig a hole 4 feet deep. That's going well into subsoil. A hotbed doesn't need to be anywhere near that deep.

He has put so much compost from his father's raised beds on top of the plot he has probably raised the soil level a foot or more. In any case, he has been doing this a long time, since he was a boy, as has his father before him - I am a newbie so have never made a hotbed but he certainly seems to know what he is doing - he had a very good crop of everything last year - his sweetcorn were taller than mine by a foot although we had the same number of cobs on each.

However it may be immaterial as he is so sick of Committee and Council interference I think he may pack it in and go elsewhere which is a shame as he is a good worker and attends his plot more than anyone else on the site other than myself and 2 or 3 others.

[Sheneval]

"capped"? Does that mean covered over so no one can fall in?

I'd suggest he gets the muck in the hole to fill it in ASAP.

Exactly that - the covering is a heavy wooden frame so you couldn't fall through it unless you jumped up and down on it. I think he may chuck it in disgust.

[Aberdeenplotter]

The only thing that they would be bothered about is,an intruder falling in and claiming compo,ohhh dear what a shame they fell in the hole,if said hole was to have safty measures around or on top,,don't see problem,BUUUUUT,it is Scottish rule again,shouts to AB

In terms of the law, if there is nothing in the lease and the local authority has now made a rule(regulation) that 4ft deep holes are not allowed, the regulation has no legal force unless and until it has been confirmed by the Scottish Ministers.

However, I think we need to step back from this and take the commonsense approach.

a 4ft deep uncovered trench is a hazard and there could well be circumstances when for instance, the emergency services could be out looking for a missing person on allotments at night. happened on one of the sites local to here. So common sense dictates that such trenches should not be left uncovered and the local authority is not being unreasonable in the present circumstances.

Now I must say I haven't researched the why's and wherefores of creating a hotbed but I did empty a preconstructed one for a customer and then refill it. It was about 2 ft deep and it worked well.


Again, back to commonsense, if constructing a hot bed, look to have it dugout and filled and recovered with soil in the same work session. Better safe than sorry.

[Sheneval]

I had not looked at this hotbed for some time and only discovered how the finished product, without the manure and earth, looked when I went up this morning - the covering on top is a door see pic.

[alldigging]

Is it against the ofifcial rules? Or does someone just not like the idea? It doesn't look like you could accidentally fall in.

[Sheneval]

I don't know although I have my suspicions - there is no way you could accidentally fall in - you would have you lift off the door and climb in - a child couldn't do that, in any case we don't get children, other than our own, wandering about the site and they certainly don't go into fenced plots.