Allotments on the One Show, Greenwich allotmenteers fight 200% rent hike Options

[Simon Kirby]

I mentioned the other day about the plans of Greenwich Council to increase their allotment rents by 200%, and they were featured on the One Show last night - item starts 1 minute 45 seconds in.

Tenants there are facing a 200% rent increase - that would increase the cost of a standard plot from £67 to £200. Greenwich allotmenteers are fighting the increase on the basis of a 1982 High Court decision which requires councils to apply the same subsidy to allotments as it does to its other leisure services. There are a number of councils who are looking at similar price hikes, not least Newbury Town Council who have already proposed that a standard plot should cost £250, and similar legal challenges seem likely.

The significant difference between Greenwich and Newbury is that Greenwich is actively encouraging its sites to self-manage to avoid the increase:

The Council is very keen on the idea of sites moving to self-managed status. Self-managed sites would be able to set their own rents and manage their own maintenance

Newbury Town Council admit that their administration of their service costs the tax-payer around £80 per plot, and this compares rather poorly with commercial administration at around £8 per plot, and self-managed administration at around £2 per plot. I understand that an allotments management company has already made a formal approach to the Town Council to take on the management of the Council's six sites which would save the tax payer at least £40k by the Council's reckoning, and more likely twice that, with no increase in rent for the allotmenteers. It will be very interesting to see how the Town Council respond.

[Simon Kirby]

Last year Cllr Johnson proposed a rate of £25 per pole. As the scale of the Council's inefficiency comes under ever closer scrutiny with the deepening of the public spending crisis it's reasonable to suppose it will be proposed again.

To consider the following proposals for 2010/11:

...
Allotment Charges - Currently, the cost of providing allotments is subsidised by all Newbury Council taxpayers at about 75%. It therefore seems logical and fairer for the cost of providing the service (which is enjoyed by a relatively small number of Newbury residents) to be weighted towards the direct users of the service. It is felt that this can best be achieved by introducing a two-tier charging system from the 1st April 2010 which will, over time, address the issue of reducing the subsidy. The new charges are proposed to be: for existing tenants an increase from £4.71 per pole to £5.00 per pole per annum, and for new tenants £25 per pole per annum.

And the subsidy was actually 80%; £12k revenue, £64k turnover, that's £21.5 maintenance, £42.5 administration.

It's a funny old thing, but by the time of the West Mills Tenants Meeting Cllr Johnson appeared to have forgotten about the proposal to set a rent to cover the administrative costs.

[an allotmenteer asked] Does the Council plan to increase charges over the next few years to the point where all administrative costs are recovered from plot-holders?

Chairpersons Response: “There have been no discussions to date regarding full recovery of admin costs through future rent increases.

Odd that, no?