[Windsong]

A couple of weeks ago, we received a letter from the council complaining about non-cultivation/weeds on our plot saying that we had 14 days to sort it out or we would be given notice to quit.

Now, we received the plot in April and it was a jungle when we took it over. We tranformed it completey, and relatively quickly. I don't have any recent pictures on my computer at the moment but I did post pictures here: http://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php?topic=70165.msg854209#msg854209

Anyway.....it wasn't that bad when we went up there as we had dug it over a few weeks piror. We dug it over again, though, and we sowed some green manure while we were at it. We got a notice to quit today and we are absolutely fuming. We contacted the site administrator and the person in charge of allotments and we sent them our pictures and explained green manure to them. They said that they're going to go have a look at the plot tomorrow and then they'll get back to us.

It seems completely unreasonable and unjustifiable to evict us from the plot and I was wondering if we have any recourse?

[mumofstig]

They probably don't understand green manure 
I hope they see sense after they visit..good luck

[DD.]

Don't you just hate it when the person in charge knows diddly about gardening?

Sounds like you have a chain of command, at least with our council run allotments there's just one person to go to to put right on matters.

[sunshineband]

I agree that sounds wrong, and I hope you can quickly resolve this too  It sounds hopeful.

The other side of this is our council who do not seem to ever evict non- cultivators, despite a waiting list of 57! 

[alancas]

i hope those people who gave you notice to quit dont come down our way there would be no lotties left ,hope it goes ok,be lucky

[Goldfinger]

Office working, steering wheel attendants!! 

That's what we call them in my type of work.

If it's 'green', it's a weed  :blink:

Unless, it's wrapped in plastic, on a shelf with a sell by date on it! 

[ermck1]

Hi Windsong

Bad news.

Can you post a piccy of whats its like now? This might help with the campaign to keep your lotty away from the jobsworth

Mike

[stompy]

Who owns the site, is it council, parish, or private?

[savbo]

Who owns the site, is it council, parish, or private?

this is the crucial question as it will indicate what right of recourse there is. Hopefully it's Council as with such a strong case you can take it up the complaints chain...

[TerryB]

A couple of weeks ago, we received a letter from the council complaining about non-cultivation/weeds on our plot saying that we had 14 days to sort it out or we would be given notice to quit.

Now, we received the plot in April and it was a jungle when we took it over. We tranformed it completey, and relatively quickly. I don't have any recent pictures on my computer at the moment but I did post pictures here: http://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php?topic=70165.msg854209#msg854209

Anyway.....it wasn't that bad when we went up there as we had dug it over a few weeks piror. We dug it over again, though, and we sowed some green manure while we were at it. We got a notice to quit today and we are absolutely fuming. We contacted the site administrator and the person in charge of allotments and we sent them our pictures and explained green manure to them. They said that they're going to go have a look at the plot tomorrow and then they'll get back to us.

It seems completely unreasonable and unjustifiable to evict us from the plot and I was wondering if we have any recourse?

Hi Windsong
You have said that you have dug it over at least twice but have you planted anything ?
You can be evicted if you have not cultivated the plot even if you don't have a lot of weeds.
This happened on our site because the person was only using the plot to get rid of waste from his part time job of doing other persons gardens.

[Windsong]

The council owns the site and we did grow stuff on it this year. We grew 3 kinds of potatoes which we got a nice crop from and some radishes. We also planted broad beans and sprouts but the rabbits ate those. I will post pictures tomorrow. They're on my husband's memory stick in work.

A handful of other plots are in a bad state (one even has carpeting and tyres scattered over it) and when we asked the site administrator (she's the council employee who oversees our area) if any other plot holders got a letter, she got cagey and never really answered the question. I have a feeling that the answer is no and I think we may be being singled out. I think that either a) someone has their eye on our plot now that they see how nice it is since we cleared it; or b) the head of the council department has ordered this to get at my husband because my husband happens to be a supervisor of a section that the head of department is gunning for.

The site administrator didn't contact us today.

[joyfull]

Hello, any photos yet of your plot before and after?
If you do have a meeting with the council then perhaps you could print off as many details about green manure that you can find to back up your case as many people like me had never heard of it until I joined here 

Also just a little word to the wise (and I know you haven't done so but just in case anybody asks you) please do not name the council nor the department or person on here for legal reasons