£25/pole rent

[Geoff H]

But even if you don't sell your surplus eggs then a lot of people would want to comply with the free range standard as the main reason a lot of people are going into chicken keeping is that they want to give the chickens that produce their eggs a good existence. And if they also want to rear a few for the table......
All this is another reason why I am sticking with my private allotment. I can sell as much as I want. It started with just plants (I( do unusual perennials) but now its vegetables and hopefully eggs and honey.

[Geoff H]

[Unwashed]

The committee are off to the town hall to give the full council a piece of our mind.  They backed down on the £25/pole, but still imposed a 47% increase.  They're trying to reduce the subsidy, but it turns out - and none of the councillors actually bothered to ask - but it turns out that £44k of the £50k subsidy is down to administration - the council have the same number of staff as Birmingham City Council who administer 20 times the number of sites.

They've been fobbing us of for more than two years because the tenants wants to be involved but the council won't have any of it, but we've had enough now and we're demanding they talk to us about self-management because £25/pole will keep coming up now and it's outrageous.

We've also asked them to suspend the 47% increase or else we'll have to make that complaint to Trading Standards.

[mat]

I read about this in the local Newbury Press the other day when waiting at the Honda garage... i was horrified.  It did seem they are trying to reduce the waiting list by increasing costs...  It will make a mokery of the purpose of allotments - a way for everyone to grow their own food.  £250 will only be in the league of the wealthy.  It will not make any produce economic to grow.

Sounds like their costs are way too high.

£250/year for a 10 pole plot is madness.

I used to be on a self managed site at Abingdon, when i lived in Oxfordshire a few years ago.  I used to drive 7 miles to it as it was better than the council run sites.  I cannot remeber what I paid, but it was something like £10 a year for 10 poles...

[Unwashed]

Cheers Mat.  It'll all end in tears unfortunately.  The council brushed us off but feelings are running high and we're not going to take any more of their crapola.  We're in the middle of a deep recession, inflation is pretty much zero, and people are losing their jobs, but Newbury Town Council hike up the tax bill by 6%, which might be OK if they were spending our hard-earned tax money on creating new allotment sites for the 100+ people already on the waiting list, but they're not, they're spending it at the rate of £79 per plot just to administer the sites they already have - that's £50k, about 6% of the tax bill - and because they're so hopelessly inefficient they're not going to create any new sites because it will cost them too much money.

And we've told them that we can save them £50k if they let us help but they wiggle their finger in their ears and say we can't hear you.  But we'll make them hear.

[mat]

can someone get the local TV news involved?... talk to the press?... give some facts... amazing what can happen then...   May be good to talk in total costs (e.g. the average size is 10 pole (or whatever it is on your site) and this will cost £250/year...

£25 doesn't sound much, to those who don't know how large allotments are...  they may think thats all you pay...

[Unwashed]

The protest is building momentum nicely now.  We talking to various media and over the coming weeks we'll be getting the word out.

We've put the complaint into Trading Standards now as well.  We asked the council to suspend the increase pending this but they blew us off - they said the Regulations didn't apply because we can quit our plots at any time - man, should they ever had read the tenancy agreement!

I'm getting responses back from other councils now about their costs.  Wantage Town Council charge half the rent that Newbury charge and manage to run their allotment sites with zero subsidy, and they have been creating new plots so the town doesn't have a waiting list.

[vegwise]

Hi UW

I have phoned Wantage and they told me something different to how you have interpreted it  ? :(

They have a waiting list and don't do anything to the site at all  :-[

Their rate is £3-33 for about 1.5 pole and £6.00 for a large pole.

If your rate is £4-71   ???  how can they be cheaper  ???

Who pays to cut your main paths, hedges. Who pays for control of rats, water rates, fencing etc. Do you get reminders to pay for your allotment ?

All this would be an added benefit and cost that you don't have to pay. :o

VW

[tonybloke]

UW, you really need to get NSALG involved. they can negotiate between the council and your association (and help you set one up if you haven't already)then the council will be ablr to slash the cost of proivision, 'because the asociationj will do most of the work. 'simples' ;)

[Unwashed]

Tony, the council don't want to slash their costs.  We have an association, we keep asking them to talk to us.  They won't.

[tonybloke]

istill reckon you should speak to geoff or bryn at http://www.nsalg.org.uk/

[Unwashed]

Hi UW

I have phoned Wantage and they told me something different to how you have interpreted it  ? :(

They have a waiting list and don't do anything to the site at all  :-[

Their rate is £3-33 for about 1.5 pole and £6.00 for a large pole.

If your rate is £4-71   ???  how can they be cheaper  ???

Who pays to cut your main paths, hedges. Who pays for control of rats, water rates, fencing etc. Do you get reminders to pay for your allotment ?

All this would be an added benefit and cost that you don't have to pay. :o

VW

vegwise, you so conspicuously fail to engage with the substantive issue that I wonder you're not a member of Newbury Town Council.  Or close family at least. ;)

Anywho, I'm much obliged to you for the excuse to repeat my criticism of Newbury Town Council's appaling inefficiency and arrogance in spending my tax money.  Here's the response I had from Wantage Town Council:

Thank you for your request for information concerning allotments. It is broadly the Council's aim that allotments should be a net nil cost to it. The annual income is just of £2,100 per annum and the direct costs are in the region of £1,750 per annum. The staff cost to support is about 30 hours per annum at a cost in the region of £350. Councillors themselves put a fair bit of effort into inspecting allotments but receive no payment for it. The Town Council has 5 sites with space for 180 plots. Currently 150 are let. The Town Council has a duty under the Allotment Acts to provide allotments but as indicated, its aim is that the costs should be fully recovered from the tenants.

With 150 of their 180 plots let I've infered that they don't have a waiting list.  There are more that 100 people on the Newbury Town Council waiting list.

With income of £2,100 from 150 plots I can see that the average cost of a plot in Wantage is £14.  The average cost of a plot in Newbury is £28, from an above-average rate of £4.71.

For each plot Newbury Town Council spend £30.68 on planned and un-planned maintenance.  That's double the bill from a few years ago.  I was happy to cut the grass on the main path, clear out the ditches, and lay and gap-up my bit of hedge.  The Council changed the rules so even if I wanted to I'm not allowed to help.  I've been down to the Council several times now to formally invite the council to involve the tenants in the maintenance of the site because it would generate a great sense of community - and save a bunch of cash too - but the Council refuse to discuss the possibility.  Odd, don't you think?

The water bill takes care of £4.29 of my rent.

Rodent control costs £3.29, though we've never had a rodent problem at Wash Common so this is a waste of money.  The bait is also left down permanently which is a totally unsustainable way of dealing with rodents, and it's this that made Newbury one of the first places in the country to develop second-generation anti-coagulant immune super rats.  And they don't look for carcasses, so they're contributing to the secondary poisoning of the wildlife, abd even though it violates the pesticides regulations they don't look regularly and thoroughly for carcasses, because they say they can't afford to.  I'd rather they didn't put poison down at all.

Now pay attention, because this is important.  Newbury Town Council spend £73.23 on administration.  So that's basically sending out the bills.

So whereas Wantage run their allotment service at zero nett cost, Newbury Town Council subsidise their service to the tune of £50k, and £41k is blown on administration.  And the Council wanted to saddle the allotmenteers with that bill by increasing rents to £25/pole.

[tonybloke]

£73 .23p on admin?? that's bl**dy good value to the local rate-payers!! ought to be up for a prize of some sort!!  ;)

[chriscross1966]

£73 .23p on admin?? that's bl**dy good value to the local rate-payers!! ought to be up for a prize of some sort!!  ;)

per plot unfortunately... I was thinking of moving to Newbury, but this is insane.... I'll be getting 15 poles (or so) on a site at Oxford this year, (my current 10 and another 5 for a mixture of polytunnel, cold-frames and squashes) adn it'll cost me 25 quid total. The council don't spend a lot on our site, from memory we're talking about a few hundred quid plus admin, and the site com,mittee sort out sending out letters adn collection of fees etc..... 15 poles in Newbury now would be 70 quid plus..... that's everythign I spend on seeds as well as most of my shop-bought compost......

chrisc

[Unwashed]

15 poles in Newbury would now cost you £104.10, and while you pay that the newbury tax payer is stung for another £253 to pay for £232 worth of administration, and £97 of maintenance.

Their rate is £3-33 for about 1.5 pole and £6.00 for a large pole.

If your rate is £4-71   Huh  how can they be cheaper  Huh

Have you worked it out yet?  Wantage's rate is £2.22/pole, and that's les than Newbury's rate of £4.71/pole. ;)

[Unwashed]

Our campaign is building:  see here in the Newbury Weekly News.

[Squash64]

Interesting that the council say it will cost 61p per week for a plot.  Makes it sound so cheap when they put it that way.
Good luck with your campaign.

[vegwise]

Hi UW
I know you reply to these posts late at night and you are a bit tired and, grumpy however please don't make assumptions and you could try to be less unpleasant / patronising in your replies?

First of all I have NOT conspicuously failed to engage with the 'substantive' issues. Now pay attention and try to keep awake as this is important, I am NOT the slightest bit interested in unverified hear say. ;)

On my last post about Wantage rates I had a UW moment ( From no waiting list to a waiting list) and missed out some information, which now makes their plots £2-22 per pole, sorry about that. ;)

I feel a Black Sabbath song springs to mind 'Paranoid'  :)

VW

[tonybloke]

so, you both agree that wantage's rent is £2.20 per pole!! Yay!! :)

[Unwashed]

Tony, I seem to have snagged a troll, so I'm using the ignore button.

My letter in the Newbury Weekly News today:

Dear Sir

The Wash Common Allotment Society is dismayed at the Town Council's 47% allotment rent increase.  We've seen a 90% real-terms increase in rents since 2003 and having found out how the money is being spent we're utterly appalled at the Council's inefficiency.

Rental income hardly covers 20% of the service cost so with the burden of a £50k subsidy being shouldered by the tax-payer we completely sympathize with the need for change, but £41k of the service cost is administration. It's an outrageous amount, equivalent to £73 per plot, for work that an allotment society could do for a couple of quid.  Comparable councils like Wantage Town Council manage to run their allotment service without a subsidy, and their plots cost half that of Newbury, so our Council is getting something seriously wrong.

The maintenance bill alone is almost half as much again as the rental income. The Society has several times asked the Council to involve the tenants in the site maintenance, and yet they refuse.  Our membership survey reveals that 90% of our members want to help out, but the Council even changed the Rules to prevent this.  We find this perverse in the extreme.

Working with the tenants is key. We enjoy the challenge and responsibility, the tax bill is kept under control, and the Council can then afford to open up new sites to accommodate the hundred-odd residents who are currently sitting on the waiting list.

We urge the Council to suspend the rent increase and embrace the Society, for the benefit of the allotmenteers and the Newbury tax payer.

[Digeroo]

Seems someone has taken over your avatar UW.

Been following this with interest. 

Does the freedom of information mean you can require the council to give details of precisely what the admin covers?  It seems wrong that you are being asked to fund their inefficiency and their unwillingness to allow volunteers to take over some of the work.

Seems odd that they continue to refuse to talk to your association. 

From article

In reply, the deputy leader of the council, Julian Swift-Hook (Lib Dem, Pyle Hill), said he could not make a commitment on behalf of the council to meet with the society,

What a funny way of saying he refuses to talk to you.  So much for democracy.