Planning the creation of a new allotment

[ovendoor]

I'm trying to find a list of "do's and don't" for the creation of a new allotment initially starting from the locating of land and subsequent documents that need to be submitted to a council for permission. Failing that list, any information from others that have gone through that initial process would be very useful.
Thanks, Ian.

[nick the grief]

Hi Ovendoor & welcome to the Vine,

Get hold of a copy of a book called "The Allotment Handbook" by Sophie Andrews. It contains loads of information. Also the allotment regeneration initiative's website may have some information

http://www.farmgarden.org.uk/ari/ind...tpage&Itemid=1

And finaly, the NSALG's site

http://www.nsalg.org.uk/

Try dropping them an e-mail they may be able to put you in touch with a local rep for your area.

Best of luck & let us know how you get on.

[ovendoor]

Re "The Allotment Handbook" by Sophie Andrews

Thanks for the info nick, the book is now on order.

I've been to both websites you mention (and many others too) and found nothing relating to start-ups. Your advice about contacting them however is good and I'll be doing just that this week.

Regards
Ian

[nick the grief]

Hi Ian,

I assume you are speaking to the local council anyway. I'm sure their allotment officer will be willing to help as it's in their interest if they are providing the site that it suceeds. Another place to try is a local existing allotment site, have a word withthe committee there & ask them what they would do different or maybe you could form a joint committee if it's close by so you can benefit from there expertise & if they have a shop you can use that.

As to promoting the site to get people interested, do a few posters & put them up in Libraries, the Council Office, local Garden centres or maybe even local supermarkets, these are places that most folks visit.

You'll need a set of Rules , you can down load these from the ARI site & modify them to your needs & maybe get the council to give them the once over to make surethey comply withtheir objectives etc.

Other things to consider would be Bonfires, these can be a real nuisance to locals if you are surrounded by housing so you may need to ban them or only allow them at certain times of the year. - Maybe the council will provide you with some Commercial sized Green bins & freebie compost bins as well.

Water is another thing, can you get the council to lay standpipes on for you? (Free/cheap water butts from the council)

Is there enough interest to start your own trading hut, Site security is something to think about. How many plots will there be and can you get an accurate plant of them.

One thing to consider, we have decided to stop doing half plots. We hace no smaller plots so some people used to have a half plot & we'd let two of these, however we have now decided to maintain the unused plots by having the weeds cut down & then whe folks wnat to take them on we get them ploughed & rotavated for them to give them a start, you can't do this with half plots in the vacant bit is furthest from the road way, so now we have decided to only rent full plots & if you only want to use half it is your responsibility to keep the othre half mown or "sublet/share" with a friend. that way we aren't left with a load of half plots we can't maintain.

As i think of other things I'll drop them down in a post for you.