Council Allotments to go private...

Our local council has told our site secretary that they want us to take over the running of the allotments, or else they'll be upping the rent by £17 per POLE (nuts!)
So needless to say, thats a price hike no one intends to take on.... so we're gonna have to take it over. (the council have never done much at our site anyway.... not been near us in 10 yrs apparently)

Has anyone been through this process before and can shed light on how it works and offer any advice?
And has anyone else's site been issued with similar ultimatums?

Don't panic!  Not quite the same situation but ...

Our village allotments were set up from scratch two years ago on land leased from a local farmer.  Effectively it's all committee run and although we have had some issues to deal with, it's not really that onerous.  I wasn't involved right at the setup but I believe the agreements etc were all bog standard ones.  I'm on the committee now and it's fairly straightforward stuff.

If the Council hasn't been near then you might be better off being privately managed anyway    You will need some volunteers though!!

Have fun.

NSALG are quite helpful too.