QUOTE (dannyboy @ Nov 17 2010, 12:58 PM)
I thought that the rest of the allotment holders couldn't care less?
Not really. Look at what was asked
at the tenants' meetings.
The rent rise was unpopular because the rents are now some of the highest you'll find and yet the service is one of the poorest. Criticism of the rent rise isn't the Council's major concern though because that's easy enough to justify in terms of the tax-payer subsidy that the service enjoys. What's got the Council rattled is that the allotmenteers are beggining to understand how increadibly inefficiently the service is run and that self-management is a viable alternative that delivers cheaper rents and a better service. This is a very dangerous idea for the Council because it threatens what is for them a £125k turn-over business. The Council have had to work hard to contain the situation. For example this from the West Mills meeting:
QUOTE
[an allotmenteer] asked if Newbury Town Council had checked other council’s charges?
Granville Taylor stated that we had investigated other allotments fees, adding that we had found that some self managed sites were as much as £100.00 per pole. ... Cllr Johnson added that the average costs found were around £6 to £7 per pole.
Newbury's rent is now £6.94 per pole so if what Cllr Johnson said was true Newbury's rents would be average and there'd be no justification for any complaint. My own survey of 20 of Newbury's neighbouring boroughs suggest that the average all-in rate for a ten pole plot is most likely in the range £3 to £4 per pole. I asked a friend to put in a Freedon of Information request to find the basis of Cllr Johnson's assertion, and the Council claim to have sampled Thurrock (£8.25 per pole) and Enfield (£7.20 per pole), which is an odd choice, not least because their average rate is not even in the £6 to £7 range, but then there are precious few sites charging more than Newbury so choice was always going to be limited.
Granville Taylor's claim to have found self-managed council sites charging £100 per pole is also interesting because if true it would suggest that self-management is a very expensive way to go, and that is not what my research suggests. Again, my friend asked the Council to justify the Council's assertion and it turns out that the Services Manager was talking about the commercially-managed grow-your-own plots at Wyevale Garden Centres which are not council sites, and certainly aren't self-managed, and they're not even allotments in the generally accepted sense.
The Council have also gone for me personlly since I started the allotment society three years ago. If you're interested you might like to make a Freedom of Information request to see all the complaints that have been made against me. My personal favourites are Cllr Fenn's complaints that I brushed my dogs on my plot, and that the singing at our summer social was too loud, and my warning from the Chief Executive that flying my English Flag higher than 8' tall was a breach of the rules was probably the most bizarre when the plot of the year flies the same flag at the same height pretty much next to mine.
This was one of the most hurtful from my ward councillor, allotment steward, and neighbour of 15 years Cllr Marion Fenn:
QUOTE
Could the Leader and other councillors please support fellow councillors and the officers in dealing with a member of public who not only flaunts allotment rules, uses up excessive officer time but also makes malicious, false and defamatory statements about officers, the council and some councillors? Those remarks by e-mail, sent to officers and members of the public, often contain crude and offensive language - could this be deemed as vexatious behaviour? What do you see as the way forward, taking into account that this person has failed to heed previous warnings?
Cllr Fenn didn't tell me she was making this accusation, and I was given no opportunity to answer the accusations. Here's an idea though: if Cllr Fenn can produce a collection of those
crude and offensive e-mails and post them here I'll gladly make a generous donation to a charity of her choice, and if she can't I'll expect her to reciprocate.
When I
continued to press for a satisfactory answer to the question of the fairness of the rent increase the Council were happy to take up Cllr Fenn's suggestion and brand me a
vexatious complainant which was a pretty effective way of discrediting and silencing me.
It doesn't pay to complain, so it's no wonder that most allotmenteers keep their heads down and do as they're told. I just don't agree that's right. If I was mugged for £20 in the underpass I wouldn't be happy to let it go, and I'm no more inclined to give the Council £20 that they can't legitimately demand. Obviously, it would help if more people felt the same, but my conscience is my own and I have to do what I think is right.