Obey the allotment steward, or loose the plot, Simon fails in his bid to get an allotment Options

[Andy Capp]

It seems that the Newbury Town Council have turned down his application for an allotment. In a nutshell it seems they feel he is too high maintenance, but I would imagine his refusal to accept a condition to 'obey' the allotment steward didn't help.

The decision was unanimous.

http://www.newburytoday.co.uk/news/news/15...thickens--.html

[CrackerJack]

NWN says the bit Simon refused to comply with was "to obey everything the site steward told him to do". If that was the wording then it seems it should be a bit more along the lines of "every reasonable request" or similar. But hey... I don't have an allotment and didn't realise they were run on such a dictatorial basis...

[Andy Capp]

The problem Simon has is that he hasn't taken people with him and generally the allotmenteers are a timid lot, it seems. The local council don't like impertinence that is for sure.

If the steward is elected then I think the stewards word should be final, but only if there is an appeals process. The problem is Simon is quite bright and that will cause an increase likelihood of conflict I fear.

All get roundable with an allotment constitution of course.

[Lolly]

Are they asking Simon to sign the same agreement as everybody else, or are they trying to impose extra conditions on him?

If the former, then it could certainly do with redrafting. If the latter, then that would seem (to me) to be an abuse of power.

[Simon Kirby]

Are they asking Simon to sign the same agreement as everybody else, or are they trying to impose extra conditions on him?

If the former, then it could certainly do with redrafting. If the latter, then that would seem (to me) to be an abuse of power.

David Goff's last question to me was "Will you respect the steward's authoritah". This is a bit broader than the requirement of the allotment rules.

My response to Cllr Goff was to ask what that submission to the steward's authoritah would looked like, and as Cllr Goff didn't understand my question I gave as an example a notice asking allotmenteers not to drive on a muddy site path as a request I'd happily accept, and then gave as another example the demand that I garden naked as a demand that I would refuse - at least that's my recollection, and that's what Dan reported as happening, but it was a stressful experience and I don't honestly have much recollection of it. Point is the demand to respect the steward's authoritah without any qualification is ridiculous.

The Council's position has always been that the site steward is the Council's eyes and ears on the site and that's perfectly reasonable and unabjectionable, and the town clerk agreed with me that this is the Council's understanding of the steward's role, but Cllr Pick then reminded me of the Rule which says that allotmenteers shall: "Abide by the terms of the Agreement with the Council plus observe any guidance and recommendations which may be posted on the notice board or around any Allotment site and respect and adhere to any notices posted by the site Steward as an extension of the Council authoritah."

I do indeed find this unacceptable and I told the Council so, but I made it clear that it is the unbridled breadth of the "authoritah" which they claim the steward has over allotmenteers, and that really is ridiculously broad.

An allotment is a service, and more than that it is the allotmenteer's private leasehold property, and that brings with it the implied obligation for the Council to respect the allotmenteer's exclusive possession and quiet enjoyment. It's a curious indictment of the Council's arrogance and dysfunctional authoritarian world-view that they demand wholly inappropriate obedience from their tenants but don't commit themselves to respect their tenants' most fundamental rights.

There are site Rules to cover all foreseeable situations and whether you like those Rules or not you do as a tenant know what they are and you have a choice whether or not you are willing to accept them. Delegating unlimited authoritah to the site steward for her to post her own notices requiring that you do whatever she chooses without any prior knowledge of what you'll be told to do is not fair, and I told the Council that.

Anyhoo, the authoritah question is really rather a diversion, the more significant point is that in 2010 the Council were wrong to forfeit my tenancy without hearing my complaint, and when Trading Standards upheld my complaint and threatened the Council with civil enforcement action if they didn't drop the forfeiture the Council were vindictive when they instead evicted me with a notice to quit. This is the argument that made up most of my allotted 10 minutes and the Council didn't dispute any of it.

It's tyranny. Sure, I'm just a bloke with an allotment, but this could be anything and anyone, an if the Town Council can treat me like this with impunity you really should be worried if they have any leverage over you and you're not respecting their authoritah.

[Ken]

In the village that I live in, my wife and I got the impression that the folks in charge were running it on a dictatorial basis.

This was before the allotments were being made available and we did not like the treatment we had from the person who was acting as the steward.

Quiet enjoyment? I really wish the folks who used the allotments in our village were quiet since we can hear their conversations in our yard.

So I expect that allotments are run as cliques and if you don't fit in, they will find a way to force you out.

[Andy Capp]

David Goff's last question to me was "Will you respect the steward's authoritah". This is a bit broader than the requirement of the allotment rules.

My response to Cllr Goff was to ask what that submission to the steward's authoritah would looked like, and as Cllr Goff didn't understand my question I gave as an example a notice asking allotmenteers no...etc

The thing is, the council's decision was unanimous; that is unfortunate and a sign of party politics letting down democracy.

Sadly Simon, you will have to win friends or support, as without it you are on a hiding to nothing. I know you had that to some extent with the last deputy leader, but that back fired on everyone. We now have a new council, but of course it is the same animal.

You should have just agreed, but only if you are signed up to the same agreement as anyone else. It is not your fight. If allotmenteers don't want to fight, then you have no power to go it alone.

"...meet the new boss, same as the old boss!"

[Andy Capp]

"Anyhoo, the authoritah question is really rather a diversion, the more significant point is that in 2010 the Council were wrong to forfeit my tenancy without hearing my complaint, and when Trading Standards upheld my complaint and threatened the Council with civil enforcement action if they didn't drop the forfeiture the Council were vindictive when they instead evicted me with a notice to quit. This is the argument that made up most of my allotted 10 minutes and the Council didn't dispute any of it."

So if you are right, the council are WRONG when they say they have been fair:

“Your descriptions of the conduct of the council as “unfair”, “unlawful”, and “dishonest” are, in our opinion, wholly unfounded and without merit. While you hold and publicly express those views, we do not believe that a working relationship with you is possible.”

[Simon Kirby]

So if you are right, the council are WRONG when they say they have been fair:

“Your descriptions of the conduct of the council as “unfair”, “unlawful”, and “dishonest” are, in our opinion, wholly unfounded and without merit. While you hold and publicly express those views, we do not believe that a working relationship with you is possible.”

I'll get to unfair, but first an observation on unlawful.

The Human Rights Act grants me my Article 10 Convention right such that "Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority ... ". The HRA also says at Section 6. that "It is unlawful for a public authority to act in a way which is incompatible with a Convention right."

So I have the right to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority, and it is unlawful for a public authority to act in a way which is incompatible with that right, and yet Newbury Town Council say that while I hold and publicly express those views [that the Town Council is unfair, unlawful, and dishonest] that they will not let me have an allotment.

It is unlawful then for the Town Council to refuse me an allotment because I criticise it. It would be unlawful for the Council to deny me a service even were my criticism to be outrageously wrong-headed, such is the importance of free speech in a free society, and it's no less unlawful where my criticism is well-founded.

It's obviously unfair for the Council to act unlawfully, but specifically the unfairness that I've complained about is the statutory unfairness of the old allotment tenancy agreement rent review term. The Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 set the standard for fairness in consumer contracts, and in short a rent review term that allows the Landlord to raise the rent without giving the Tenant at least enough contractual notice for them to pack up and quit before the increase takes affect is always going to be unfair. This was the case with the old tenancy agreement as there was no notice of a rent increase and the tenant had to give 12 months notice to quit, and to make the rent review term fair it's necessary for the Landlord to give 12 months notice so that the allotmenteer isn't stuck with an unpalatable rent increase and unable to quit without loss because of crops in the ground and stuff bought in for the year ahead.

Trading Standards upheld my complaint saying:

I spoke to our legal representative yesterday and she is of the opinion that the 'rent review term' in the old agreement was itself not unfair, what made it unfair was the lack of ability to withdraw from the contract without penalty, ie you had to give 12 months notice and pay the higher price in the meantime.

The old agreement, we agreed was unfair, but was changed to comply with the legislation. (If they had not changed it WBC could have applied for a civil injunction to prevent the Council from using the term).

That was the unfairness of the tenancy agreement that I complained about, but it was also unfair for the Council to forfeit my tenancy without hearing my complaint. I complained to the Council in May 2009 that the rent review term was unfair, and I complained five more times over the following 11 months, but my complaint was ignored, and without giving it a hearing the Council forfeited my allotment tenancy.

A consequence of an unfair rent review term is that any rent increase is also unlawful, that is, it cannot be lawfully enforced, and refusing to pay the increase doesn't give rise to arrears so a landlord cannot enforce a forfeiture for arrears because a court will not grant a possession order.

So that's both unlawful, and unfair. Now dishonest:

Whether or not the Council initially held an honest belief that I was wrong in my complaint, by the time Trading Standards upheld my complaint and they gracelessly agreed to amend their tenancy agreement the Council would have been in absolutely no doubt whatsoever that I was right and my complaint justified. Trading Standards were clear with me about their threat to use civil enforcement action against the Council to prevent them from enforcing the unfair term, and it's reasonable to assume that Trading Standards would have been clearer still with the Town Council. So when the Town Council revoked my forfeiture in February 2011 they should have let the matter rest, but instead they evicted me in revenge with a Notice to Quit and lied about how that was the simplest way to get rid of me for not paying the rent increase. That was tyrannous, and gets no less tyrannous as the years pass.

So that's unfair, unlawful, and dishonest. I'm not asking you to accept my argument, but I hope that you agree that my argument is at least plausible enough to demand to satisfactory response from the Council, and the only satisfactory response at this stage is a full independent inquiry.

[Andy Capp]

So that's unfair, unlawful, and dishonest. I'm not asking you to accept my argument, but I hope that you agree that my argument is at least plausible enough to demand to satisfactory response from the Council, and the only satisfactory response at this stage is a full independent inquiry.

I completely agree. I think on the face of it, you have a good argument. Based on your testimony, I think the council are dishonest and cowardly. The reason I think that is they have avoided any option to explain themselves and when you have tried to force the issue, they have managed to avoid scrutiny on technicalities.

This is both from a Tory and Lib Dem controlled council.

The trouble is Simon, you need support; a way to enforce your human rights. I wish I was wealthy enough to pay for a hearing. As we know, justice is about how much we can afford. The Tories are seeing to that.

[Simon Kirby]

I completely agree. I think on the face of it, you have a good argument. Based on your testimony, I think the council are dishonest and cowardly. The reason I think that is they have avoided any option to explain themselves and when you have tried to force the issue, they have managed to avoid scrutiny on technicalities.

This is both from a Tory and Lib Dem controlled council.

The trouble is Simon, you need support; a way to enforce your human rights. I wish I was wealthy enough to pay for a hearing.

I sincerely thank you for that. There is some small hope that the standards committee will agree that the way the individual councillors have acted has breached their code of conduct, but the CoC is very light and it doesn't give me much hope for success. Likewise Trading Standards might be persuaded to find the "authoritah" rule unfair, but that will only remove one obstacle and will obviously enrage the Council further.

So you're right, it really needs a substantial protest of support from Newbury's allotmenteers, but sadly I don't see that happening - they're hardly likely to align themselves with me when they can plainly see my head on a spike.

[Lolly]

There is some small hope that the standards committee will agree that the way the individual councillors have acted has breached their code of conduct, but the CoC is very light and it doesn't give me much hope for success.

I fear you are right not to get your hopes up with a Standards complaint - under the new Standards regime it may not even get to Committee and there is no right of appeal..... I hope however that I am proved wrong!

[Andy Capp]

If I could see that your actions were undermining the enjoyment of allotmenteering for other users, I could see a reason for the council to be obstructive; however, from what I see they are being mean spirited. An ugly bunch if ever I saw one.

[On the edge]

This is simply shocking. To many it might seem minor, BUT it sits at the very heart of our democratic process. Sadly, it also proves that locally, there is not a shred of difference between Tory and LibDem as the saying has been adapted 'they' are all in it together. Is there no one who can see justice?

[Simon Kirby]

If I could see that your actions were undermining the enjoyment of allotmenteering for other users, I could see a reason for the council to be obstructive; however, from what I see they are being mean spirited. An ugly bunch if ever I saw one.

Newbury Town Council's policy is the classic "shut up and lie still and you won't get hurt". It works well for them and they don't see any reason to stop their abuse, and my situation is also all too familiar, being powerless to prevent the abuse and largely ignored as an embarrassment for complaining about it.

[Andy Capp]

And they have the front to call you a liar.

[MontyPython]

This is simply shocking. To many it might seem minor, BUT it sits at the very heart of our democratic process. Sadly, it also proves that locally, there is not a shred of difference between Tory and LibDem as the saying has been adapted 'they' are all in it together. Is there no one who can see justice?

And explains why so many are against authorities intercepting phone and email records. As you say, this is a minor issue, but with NTC you have as much trust of them being open and honest as you would with North Korea.

[Simon Kirby]

And explains why so many are against authorities intercepting phone and email records. As you say, this is a minor issue, but with NTC you have as much trust of them being open and honest as you would with North Korea.

I tend to think of Newbury Town Council more as the Khmer Rouge with the totalitarian agrarian dictatorship of Pol Pot. Like Pot said, "To keep you is no benefit, to destroy you is no loss."