allotments - should be cleared before allocating Y or N?

[newtonuk]

They certainly don't clear them where I am. This is mine that I got a few weeks ago.

[TrixC]

My plot was rotavated by the council before we took it on and I'd sooner they hadn't, it just broke the bindweed up into tiny pieces and it's been a nightmare to get rid of.

[Cadalot]

I am a site rep and I have in the past negotiated the first years rent free on a plot that will cost time and in some cases money to clear - 3 skips worth. I fear those days are gone, we also have plots where trees have been allow to mature to full height and are now basically not useable until the trees are removed.

[ldsau93]

Update: the council have now brought in the bulldozers and cleared the plots, though one month on the rubbish is still piled up and awaits taking away. With my Womble hat on, I've taken the initiative and had some stonking bonfires with the organic material, and used some of it to fill a newly built raised bed.

As always, nature abhors a vacuum and the brambles are quickly re-establishing themselves - just wondering how long before they're overgrown again....

Fingers crossed, they may now actually allocate them.

[1Bee]

I'm conflicted on this. Both half plots I've taken on were really, IMO, not fit for cultivation. In some places there was, by volume, more scrap, glass, nails, plastic etc than actual soil. It was in places frankly dangerous, and this was AFTER someone had been in with a mini digger and levelled it, because it was all banks and dips (complicated history on our site - the plot I have used to be covered in metal sheds and belonged to someone who cleared scrap wood for burning).

But I could have said no, and instead happily have essentially been doing the job of restoring industrial wasteland for a reduced rent...

It's not a simple answer...

[Snadger]

Its all to do with costs methinks. Either Council/landlords pay to have plot cleared which would probably wipe out a couple of years plot rent, or the plot is cleared by the new tenant. With Councils strapped for cash because of Government cuts, I can't see many Councils clearing the plots, unless they increase the rents dramatically.

[ldsau93]

2019 update.
So, of the many plots that were cleared, some have been used productively, some were cultivated for a couple of weeks, and the rest never even started. if anyone is onterested in a plot in north Bristol, please PM me.