Keep your head on straight and do not get emotional. Ask simple and direct questions:
Please tell me the grounds on which I am being evicted
What is the NTC definition of a vexatious complainant and what is the adopted policy for dealing with such a person
When was the definition and policy adopted.

Be a Shaolin, not Gen Patton.

And you still expect them to answer??? Local authorities don't do answers; or at least not what the average person can understand.

Let's nail this. You can't make a detailed proposal until there's been a consultation and the allotmenteers know what's involved and you know the allotmenteers are on board.

Such was the Council's antipathy to any form of allotmenteer-involvement it did not even recognise the existence of the Wash Common Allotment Society, and despite the evidence of a sixty-signature petition for a site hut presented to the Chief Executive and Town Mayor, the Council used the Society's supposed non-existence as a reasons to decline permission for the site hut. The Society's priority therefore was to negotiate a formal recognition agreement with the Council. This we concluded in October 2009 and it went before the Council on 1 March 2010. In the intervening months the issue of the rent increase had come up and the Society had made representations to the Council officers and members to consider the option of self-management rather than imposing a significant increase in rent. Our representations were ignored and we therefore formally asked the Council to hold talks with the Society about self-management, and this proposal also came before the 1 March Community Services Committee. It is a matter of public record that the Council resolved to not discuss self-management, and to not recognise the Allotment Society, in large part because we had asked to discuss self-management.

The Council's assertion that there has been no detailed proposal is therefore grossly disengenuous, and as a consequence of that Resolution of 1 March the Council is not legally able even to discuss self-management without another Resolution to enable it.

I think it stands out clearly that the council appear 'happy' that self management is not to proceed, despite being an example of the flagship Tories policy. I think we really should be asking why the council are not promoting this as an option. There's nothing in the public notice that suggests to me they are eager to off-load the burden of allotments from the tax payer to the allotmenteers.

Put in simple terms, it seems like they are ducking the issue.

Actully I see myself more as a beserk.

Your advice is kindly given and I'll make an effort to heed it.

And yes, I've been very open with the Council, and especially so with the Council's Solicitor and made it clear that I have no intention of avoiding a legitimate increase and am more than willing to pay the increase if the Council can show me why my objection is unfounded. Since I raised the issue of the Regulations with the Council 18 months ago the Council have ignored my representations and declined to discuss the issue. I was eventually allowed to take my complaint to Full Council but that isn't really an appropriate forum and 10 minutes wasn't enough for me to put accross a reasonably technical argument, so the first genuine engagement with my protest was 6 weeks ago when I met the Council solicitor, and since then I have had no response from the Council other than the revocation of my eviction for arrears and my Notice to Quit.

Do you think Patton was right about the Russians?

You'd think they would be as the Lib Dems wanted to whack up the rent to reduce the burden on the tax payer.

I can understand a site hut request being turned down, regardless of the status of the allotments. If one site gets one, they'll all want one & who is paying for them? Seems a bit selfish to ask for a hut & have it paid for & then take over site management so you don't have to pay as much rent!

What it looks like to me is that the council are choosing the 'easy option' because their legal position is weak.

Dunno.

There is more to the story, I'll bet.

You ask a question then base the assumed answer on your substantive point. Also, self management is a two way deal - lower rent, more work. That seems a fair deal to me.

So do I, but both parties, while full of bluster, don't seem to have the wherewithal to take legal action, although Simon Kirkby seems to think he might.

I think Simon Kirkby should stop telling the 'enemy' his next move. Knowledge is power.

So long as the work gets done.

You don't think a hut would be popular at all sites?

Yes, but it is not clear to me how the hut was proposed to be funded.

Nah, they should just sit round a table & let the one with the biggest marrow win. Cue Wurzzels


He was leaning on the garden gate the other day,
And beckoned to a lady who lives just across the way,
He took her down the garden path and showed it to her with pride,
And when she saw the size of it, the little lady sighed..

Ooooh! What a beauty, I've never seen one as big as that before,
Oh Oh! What a beauty, it must be two foot long or even more.
And it's such a lovely color, so big, and round, and fat,
I've never seen a marrow grow quite as big as that,
Oh Oh! What a beauty, I've never seen one as big as that before.

The request was for permission to build the hut ourselves, it would have cost the Council nothing. My plan was to build it from pallets, and when we were refused permission I built myself one at zero cost to prove the concept - it came second in the 2008 Shed of the Year competition. Site huts are pretty much ubiquitous on allotment sites as a communal focus and somewhere to buy seeds, sundries and tea. Have you never seen the film Grow Your Own?

My Shed.

You need to get more support then at grass roots. Proper support from your fellow allotmenteers.

If I understood the request for a site hut properly it was to be funded by the allotment society?

It still boils down to why the council do not want to reduce the taxpayers precept by offloading the high costs of the allotments to self management.

I would still like to know why the allotment costs are relatively so high compared to other councils?

From what little information I have at the moment I would agree it seems the council have not acted with the best of decorum in this?

Why did they not want a Wash Common Allotment Society to be formed?
Instead of answers it just produces more questions?

A council should be able to deal with something like this without resorting to tactics like this?
Is there any arbitration procedure that could be used to try and get this to some sort of conclusion so there are no losers?

Yes but your biased.

Wishing for arbitration is reasonable. I'd like to think something like that exists. I don't like to think our council has the power to ignore.

Now that Simon Kirkby has confirmed the cost of the shed to the tax payer, what is your complaint now towards him?

Same as it was when he first posted, months back - lack of support from the other allotment holders.


I've said before that I don't care who runs the allotments. I don't have one or want one.
But if folk really do want to run their own allotments & the cost to the tax payer would be £0.00 then it should have happened years ago. NTC can't ignore 525 allotment holders.

So 14,000 tax payers 'shouldn't have a say'? Like I said before, we should insist they self-manage, if it saves tax.