Strange practice

I'm a little concerend, or perhaps confused about a practice that goes on at our site when a tennant  give up a plot. Other plotholders decide to strip the plot bare, compost bins, fruit trees,  unused posts, pots, etc, etc. These items are taken by people who already have established plots. Surely a thought should be spared for the incoming tennant, who is starting form scratche. I'm not sure if the stuff left behind becomes 'no man's property.'  I just feel it's a bit unfair. Sorry about the rant!

My thoughts on the subject are:  a prospective holder should be shown the allotment as soon as the present holder has given notice of quitting, that way he/she can say they will take it on in that condition.  Hopefully that way the common practice of "Gizzits" would be overcome and the allotment would not be lying idle for months/years allowing weeds to take over.   There, my sixpennarth.   Cheers,   Tony.

on our plot site in hull , what usually happens is that when a plot keeper is giving up their plot, they come into the plot shop and ask if anyone wants to buy greenhouse , shed tool , ect etc, 99/100 of the time the new plot keeper is contacted before hand and he / she is given 1st choice to buy the items,

but as for taking (stealing) other peoples property,

ill put it down to theft ,

which seems harder to stop these days,

Lacewing, it sounds like your allotment folk practice outright thievery. They had no right when the plot was taken, they still have no right when it's being passed on. What terrible scavengers !

This happens on our plots and as site rep I don't have a problem with it, although if a plot holder has put a shed on the plot I would try and arrange a buyer for it, no one has ever just taken one. A plot has just become vacant that has lots of scaffolding boards on and the old tenant wants to sell them but the new tenant doesn't want them so I now have to get them moved and see if the other plot holders want to buy them, so sometimes it's easy if people just take them.

But imagine our dismay, when, about three months later, when we had already spent a great deal of effort in digging, and making new raised beds ready for the coming season, and were just beginning to feel that we were at last achieving something, we turned up one day to find a stranger lifting the paving slab path between our two plots, on behalf of the former tenant, who wanted them for her new plots.

We were dumbfounded, but there didn't seem to be a lot we could do about it 

now that is out of order! we are in the process of moving off one of our plots to another so that both our plots are next to each other but i will take everything i need/want before it is relet

but the new tenant doesn't want them so I now have to get them moved and see if the other plot holders want to buy them, so sometimes it's easy if people just take them.

I think that is one of the problems when a tenant leaves a plot with stuff on it - 9 out of 10 it is just rubbish that a new tenant then has to clear away themselves.   On my site the council will do a one off clearance but tenants have to put all the rubbish at the end of the plot nearest the track and arrange for a collection - this can however, take several weeks to be done.  I've often scavenged a rubbish pile and picked up some useful stuff     However, its very rare to pick clean a newly vacant plot on my site, and sheds/greenhouses/water butts left behind are considered part of the "fixtures and fittings" if the departing tenant has made no other arrangements.

My friends and I took our shared plot on immediately after the previous tenant decided to give it up - in fact he came along and chatted about the plot (he'd had it over 40 years & had to give it up due to ill health/sadly passed away soon after)  He also gave us most of his old tools in the shed.  But in most cases, a departing tenant  has already given up gardening long before he/she decide to let the council know, and the turn around seems extraordinarily slow given the waiting lists.  Plots get so overgrown that it is difficult to know if someone has taken it on but waiting for spring/summer to work on it, if it is still in the process of abandonment or is vacant.  At which point it doesn't surprise me if the vultures start to circle ....