Page 54 - ALG Issue 2 2018 html

East Midlands
Welcome to our new members...
Glebe Allotments Association
New Whittington (High Street) Allotment Association
Rothersthorpe Road Allotment Society South Normanton Allotment Association Wilford Village Allot Association Hempshill Hall Primary School
11 Individual Members
Transforming Elston’s Growing Community
Plot
blockers
– how to
remedy
Having been the Secretary of
my own site at Rowley Fields in Leicester since 1993, one of the most annoying parts of my role is when a member rents a plot and, despite the normal procedures of issuing a 28 days improvement notice to the cultivation of the plot, the member gives believable excuses as to the non-cultivation, and it is accepted by an understanding committee that the plotholder will cultivate in the near future.
Kinds of excuses are common to all of you secretaries around the country, but I will list a few I have been given and accepted over the years. There must be many more, but here we go:
• Moved house
• Changed job
• Got married
• Illness in the family • Birth of a child
• Poor weather
• Working away
• Out of the country
• Bereavement
Our rents are due on 1st January
each year and should be paid by 28th February. Our membership is 304 and this year we have had 9 members who have given up their plots between January and February. All but one have been the subject of a 28 days non-cultivation notice prior to the
year end, and had given acceptable excuses.
No one takes on a plot with the intention of failing. They (I hope) are genuine in their belief that they will garden a plot. But too many times now, plots are blocked by members who know they will have to give up their plot. This year, a member realised that they had not been fair to the neighbouring plotholder and so they paid the 2018 rent for them; a nice gesture, bringing back a little belief in members doing the right thing.
A possible solution to our plot blocking problem is that the rent
year is still 1st January, but to start collecting in October with a final due date of 1st January. This is something we might try in 2019?
Paul Howgill
Regional Representative
Our allotments are located on Brecks Lane about 1km to the east of Elston village,
in the County of Nottinghamshire, to the south of Newark-on-Trent. The site covers an area of approximately 4 acres and is leased from Elston Parish Council.
Previously, in 2008, representations had been made to the Council by residents in Elston and in the surrounding villages, who put forward a case demonstrating the desire to grow fruit and vegetables sustainably and organically in the local area. The Council were supportive of the proposals and a formal agreement was drawn up with a leasing option for 25 years. Hence the Elston Parish Allotments Society entered the growing world, and work to establish a new allotment began.
The site, formerly used for arable crops, had not been cultivated for several years
and a plan was drawn up to accommodate 40 plots and an orchard in which to plant 30 mixed fruit trees. However, the site lacked running water and an electricity supply, and there were no proper sanitary facilities. As more and more plots were occupied and brought into use, the need for a communal toilet became more apparent. There were difficulties, in particular, for the elderly, for female plotholders and for children visiting the site. The installation of an environmentally friendly toilet facility would omit the need for tenants and their friends to return home in the event of emergencies. The time tenants
would be able to tend their plots would also increase, leading to greater productivity.
The urgent need for proper toilet facilities was raised at AGMs but the matter was deferred due to lack of finance. Unfortunately the Society had insufficient income to provide such a facility out of its own funds which are generated solely from modest annual rent incomes.
Nonetheless the Society was mindful that it would require a preferably non- chemical but sustainable, self-composting and waterless toilet with regard to the relative remoteness of the allotment site.
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