Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Chatting => Chatting on the Plot => Topic started by: Welsh Merf on February 05, 2021, 19:08
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Hello again (stranger you may say), but I have decided to retire. It will either be the end of March, or the end of July 2021. Whichever it is, the decision has been made for certain, and it will happen.
To that end, I have applied for an allotment again, in two towns (about 4 miles from each other). My home town (New Romney) and where I originally had my allotment (Lydd), which is from where I joined this group.
New Romney Town Council has informed me that there is at least a year waiting list, and I am 15th on the said list.
Lydd Town Council has said there is a waiting list, but have not said where I am currently positioned on the starting grid.
However, and personally knowing the chairmen of both allotments, each have said they can't understand why there is a waiting list, and today both showed me around both allotments, and showed me the vacant plots, of which there are at least a dozen on each site. My question is a very simple one: Why? Do the town councils actually keep a grip on what's happening in reality? Or do they just drive from a desk?
Sorry - pressed the wrong button and posted before I was finished!
I have learned a lot from this group, and from getting my first allotment. I went and saw that first plot I had some years ago today, and I nearly cried (when I download my phone photos onto the laptop I will send you a picture). It was despondent, derelict, and disgusting. The shed, which is now actually eight or nine years old, looks more like a thirty-year-old shed, with a great big fencing panel smashed against it. It is winter now, but the growth of weeds is unbelievable; chainsaw, axe, manchette springs to mind.
When I took that allotment on in the first place, in hindsight, it was very naïve and foolish of me. I wanted an allotment, and that was it. I didn't consider the implications of work. I was relatively young, tough and hard, and thought I could manage it, and that was my very basic mistake . . . I thought. I've never been any good at thinking.
I am led to believe, and I actually believe this, when you retire, you must always have a reason to get up in the morning. Obviously not for work (because you've retired), but for one reason or another. If you don't have that motivation to get up, you will, no doubt, turn into a vegetative state, and spend the day drinking beer (which isn't necessarily a bad thing, by the way!)
When I retire, my work will be on "the farm". The difference being that I don't HAVE to get up at 5.30 in the morning, and I don't HAVE to wait until 5 in the evening before I go home. I don't HAVE schedules to keep, I don't HAVE monotonous meetings to attend, I am not answerable to anyone, and nobody is answerable to me.
I am not going to go into it like a lunatic (this time), instead, I am going to "go with the flow" as they say. We have had a lot of rain the past few weeks, and I can see the top of the water table from above ground - it is that bad! So, I obviously won't be digging and rooting about in that sort of weather. Instead, I might do some general maintenance.
I have plans . . . that is all.
I have had plans before . . . that is all as well.
Good luck and best wishes.
Love God . . . AKA Welsh Merf.
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Do the council even know there are any unworked plots, unless they inspect regularly, or someone tells them - they might not know.
If they have been notified, then it's council inefficiency - someone needs to politely put them in the picture :lol:
Mind you, because of the Covid excuse for doing nothing - that's what is happening here :D
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One of my engineers at work, his wife is the town council secretary for the New Romney allotments. I will be having a chat with him . . . politely as a friend of course. In my mind, they are losing income hand over fist, bearing in mind that the town council office is less that 500 yards from the allotments!
As an old school engineer, I've have become despondent with "desk engineers" who rely on Internet information, and drawings, rather than actually going to physically have a look at the job (one of the many reasons I've decided to retire). And don't even start me on the subject of home working!
Life has changed, most definitely for the safer in the current climate, but in the long term, for the worst I fear.
Cotton wool springs to mind.
Merf.
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Lovely to see you back again, Merf !
Looking forward to seeing your plot and your progress with it... when you get one.
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Not sure if this will work, but I have attached a photo of New Romney Allotments in its current state, and the area that I will politely refuse a plot.
If you don't see a picture, please someone let me know!
Ta muchly!
Merf.
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And this one (if it works as well as the last one) is the current state of my old plot on Lydd Allotments, and which I said was in a dreadful state.
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Oh dear :( New Romney looks better than Lydd at present.
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Hi there & welcome home :). Are the 2 chairmen able to follow up with the council why there are waiting lists if plots are vacant?
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Both lots need me as a lettings officer. :lol: Those as don't work according to tenancy go and the space is quickly filled 99.5 % of the time. There's always one awkward cuss on the list that takes a bit more time to move on but we get there.
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Hi, It is nice to see you back. I hope you soon get your plot sorted, it is such a waste of time to have to wait when there are plots not being used. If yuo know who the individuals are, could you approach them and suggest that you could "help" them use it for a while. Mrs Bouquet
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Hello check the council planning applications theres been 2 allotment sites in my area that have been built on,the only notice the tenants had was when the excavators went in on a Monday morning to clear the sites, the previous tenant should have left the site in a usable condition if not the council use to be obliged to rotavate and leave for the next tenant jezza
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Plots look like my front and back garden with all this rain. Though both areas drain very quickly when it stops raining.
See what both allotments offer and what crime has been like. Being overlooked can be useful
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Plots look like my front and back garden with all this rain. Though both areas drain very quickly when it stops raining.
See what both allotments offer and what crime has been like. Being overlooked can be useful
Both are overlooked by relatively new houses, and both have CCTV and sturdy boundary fences. Lydd is bigger, and the soil is lighter than Romney (apparently).
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.... the council use to be obliged to rotavate and leave for the next tenant jezza
Not many councils do that any more, I'm sorry to say. Ours doesn't, and if you look in the diaries most first pictures show some really overgrown plots :(
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According the the New Romney Allotment Tenancy Agreement, you have to pay £100 in advance of renting your plot, and this goes towards clearing it after you finish, if you leave it in a mess. I don't mind paying that money in advance, but I will expect an already cleared plot, either by the previous tenant, or by the council. I think that's a fair enough expectation, don't you? However, I have never heard of either Lydd or New Romney Town Councils clearing disused plots. But that's not to say they don't; it's just that I haven't heard of them doing it, and between both sites I have quite a few friends.
Anyway, on another subject, what's the crack with joining Allotment Committees, i.e. do you have to, is it a good idea, does your life suddenly become filled with politics and bureaucracy? However, I guess this is another subject, so not for this thread?
Ta.
Merf.
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.... the council use to be obliged to rotavate and leave for the next tenant jezza
Not many councils do that any more, I'm sorry to say. Ours doesn't, and if you look in the diaries most first pictures show some really overgrown plots :(
Our council got rid of their rotavator and now have a tractor that pulls a plough. That works on their biggest site as it is very open with proper access roads you can drive down. For all the smaller sites in Reading it is useless as they can’t get to the plots to clear them. Added to that, it seems to take 6-12 months between someone leaving a plot and it getting offered to a new person. It is really not fair on the poor newbies at all :(
The council here are in the process of trying to get the sites onto a more self-managed footing, but tbh, we as tenants on our site are more organised than them. They always have been difficult to get hold of, but with COVID, it is pretty much impossible. It is very much being used as an excuse to do not much of anything ::)
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Our Parish Council have you pay a deposit of £50 that you forfeit if you leave your plot in a mess, but it appears even when that happens, they don’t come & clear it ( I assume they keep the money though!) then the new tenant doesn’t pay rent for the first year if it’s in a really bad way & then have real difficulty getting the council to come & collect the rubbish they’ve stacked at the end of the plot! I think in truth the £50 isn’t enough theses days with skip hire being so expensive. Really don’t know what the answer is.
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I have had an update!
According to the Chairman of Lydd Allotments - a good friend of mine, who I spoke with this morning, I am second on the list, and two or three plots maybe become available in the next month.
However, my old plot was one of those coming up, and knowing it as well as I do, with half the topsoil having been removed, and packed with stones and crushed tiles, I said that I didn't want it, and that I'd rather wait longer and get a half-decent one. Beggars can't be choosers as they say, but I'm not in the begging category just yet. Luckily, time is on my side . . . at the moment!
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I'm trying something posh and modern . . . . bear with!
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Hopefully, if you can see a picture, I have the nearest half since this afternoon, and will be getting the upper half within a month or so. 250 square metres = 10 perch. Please someone let me know if the photo thingy doesn't happen!
Ta.
Merf.
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Now, how do I turn the picture the right way round? It was the right way round when I posted it?
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congrats on the plot. is this the plot you had your eye on?
looks like you will be busy clearing and discovering!
hope the ground is in good heart.
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I don’t think it can be turned. Forum only displays landscape picture format.
And that certainly is a landscape. Plenty of work for you Merf. I would skim the grass and weeds off as a turf and stack it in the corner upside down, covered with black polythene, for a year or so. It will make fine compost to enrich your soil.
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I don’t think it can be turned. Forum only displays landscape picture format.
And that certainly is a landscape. Plenty of work for you Merf. I would skim the grass and weeds off as a turf and stack it in the corner upside down, covered with black polythene, for a year or so. It will make fine compost to enrich your soil.
Luckily, it was only turned over last year, so nothing will be too deep-rooted, and the soil underneath looks lovely. And thanks for answering my photo question!
Merf.
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I have been persuaded/pressganged onto our committee to even up the male/female split. Although most plot holders are male there are quite a few of us pesky women and they want the committee to represent that. I have also reduced the average age, which given I'm 69 shows you how old the others are. So far it's been ok, covid seems to have focused everyone's attention on what's really important.
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Great result Merf, that’s your retirement sorted then lol.
Be careful Graciesgran, I joined the committee when I retired & now I’m chairwoman lol .Actually I quite enjoy it, the position was vacant for a year & we were beginning to flounder a bit so offered to take on the role just before Covid hit :wacko:
Just reread this & I should make it clear I’m chair of the gardening club that has not nothing to do with the allotments where I have a plot, they are run by the Parish Council
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Hi Merf unfortunately this is common place in some areas when people decide to just walk away from there plot and leave somebody ells to clear up there mess and by the time the council or any other parties get involved its to late
it seems the bigger the local authority the more inefficient they become dealing with allotments as its a low priority its very sad when there are people crying out for allotments our allotments landlord the parish council have a dedicated rep who looks after both the allotments and the cemetery so any allotment holders not cultivated the plot get a letter to ask them if they still wish to rent the plot as there is a waiting list for any spare plots
I think it worth considering joining the allotments committee well at least you could have you say and try to improve things and politics should never come into play allotments are there for everyone in the community who wants to grow veg or home use and its a necessity for such committee's to have a say in the running of there allotments
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I joined the allotments association (not committee) yesterday. It has absolutely nothing at all to with the fact that the chairman, and deputy chairman are an old friends of mine :D