[woodsmoke]

Had info from local garden centre (part of big group used to be Wyevale I think) about grow your own sites - i.e. allotments on their land use of loos, restaurant, shop etc 90 square metres each.  Was interested and thought of telling son who wants one until I saw the rent.  £5 per week.  £10 if you want a shed and greenhouse.  Rip off?  Band wagon? 
Thing is, if people think this is worth it and pay then it will push up costs of other allotments I would have thought.  Especially new sites.  I am lucky here - I pay £20 a year, but was paying £75 just down the road.
What do people think?

[RichardA]

If your hobby was golf or swimming or sailing or fishing and you had access to facilities such as toilets etc then what would the price be
It all depends how you look at these things. Effectively my "allotment" is half an acre of ground I purchased next door to my own garden, that cost me £10,000. So how does that compare??
R

[DD.]

This has cropped (sorry) up before and considered to be a rip off:

http://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php?topic=56766.0

[Comfortably Numb]

It does seem like a lot of money each week, but is that just because we have got used to the sort of pricing structure for a council allotment.

When you look at the amount of money an awful lot of people spend on smoking, drinking, gym membership etc., £10 per week doesn't seem so bad. If you are on a never ending waiting list for a plot, then I would think some people would be seriously tempted by it.

£10 per week is a lot for me personally, but to some people it is nothing at all 

[Mazzie]

Sadly though some allotments have long waiting lists so if you have the money then you may as well go for it. 
I couldnt afford that and i couldnt get to my local Wyvale often enough anyway but if i could i would especially after the amount of work i am having to put into my allotment that has no water, no greenhouse/shed, and a ton of rubbish and rubble and vandals!

[digalotty]

£500 a year for what is a small full plot , well i know people will pay it but that doesn't mean its worth it
richard thats a lot of money but you do own it and it will always ad value to your home so worth it if you can afford it ,  i wish i could buy half acre next to my house 

[iggyboy60]

We pay £40 per year,this is going up to £45 next year. I am happy to pay,but there has to be a point where it would no longer be worthwhile. We all know home grown produce tastes much better than shop bought,but if you are talking hundreds of pounds per year to run a plot,that is ridiculous.

[impossible5072]

Hi

I am really lucky, I moved into a council place and there was some waste ground at the back it can only be accessed by the 4 corner gardens of which I am one, so the council offered it to us, last year we fenced it off and made it part of our land so I have a fair sized garden then 'tthis piece of garden at the back, but don't think its all roses as the land has been used for over 15 years as a dumping ground.  We first pulled down the old yukky fence at the end of our garden to find 4 foot deep of rubbish piled by the last tenants, dead and half dead trees that broke 2 axes getting them out.  Bricks after bricks even old windows dumped when they replaced them with double glazing.  Mirrors not our bad luck thankfully, even bullet casings from a rifle, and a military button, fireguards carpets, shopping trolleys, shall I go on.....maybe not.  We are getting there slowly, its fenced off, the greenhouse is up and the garlic and the raspberries are in.   Its amazing how far we have come.  Believe me I am not having there has ever been a worse site I am just waiting to find the body, but we will get there.

[impossible5072]

Ha ha and the point of that story was lol, can you not find some ground the council want to pass over, they are selling patches here left right and centre there must be bits they cant sell but would be happy for people to lease and tidy up.

[Yorkie]

Ha ha and the point of that story was lol, can you not find some ground the council want to pass over, they are selling patches here left right and centre there must be bits they cant sell but would be happy for people to lease and tidy up.

It partly depends how responsible your council is.  Ours takes care to ensure adequate drainage, access, and lack of contamination.  'Any old bit of land' is no good.

[kevinp]

I am part of a community farm, the allotment side is rabbit and deer proofed fence, we have running water, toilets, a shed, a barn with cooking and more toilets, secure storage in the barn, the use of half a 60 foot poly-tunnel the site is locked and we all have keys. The average size of a plot is between 50 and seventy five feet by fifteen foot we pay £85 per plot.
the local council plots are £18.00 but there are none available and the list is between 10 and 20 years long and there will be no more in the future.
the rest of the farm at the moment is used for disabled people and schools there is also a organic plot which is run commercially in the future the farm is able to grow and another 12 acres will be available we will then be able to keep chickens pigs sheep goats or even cattle if we want, for some people this is still too much money and they have left.

[digalotty]

i actually think you have a bargain there kevin when you consider the polytunnel and storage and even a toilet 

[kevinp]

And I do digalotty if you click my allotment blog you can see how it is at the moment looks dull at thee moment but in the summer its very nice.

[Goldfinger]

Here's a 'wild goose' idea...

I've been in and out of our Metro stations with work over the last few months and have noticed they have loads of land going to waste on or near their railways.

Now I know some will say H&S  , way too close to the lines etc    :blink:, BUT,

Allotmenteers are responsible people so how about getting a group together and approaching certain companies and asking to rent any bit of spare land and/or setting up a new area??

On some of the sites I've been on, the houses that back onto some of the areas, have cheekily 'extended' their fences nearly upto the sleepers on the railway.

Now, whether they've done this legally or not, the companies must/might be willing to give up some land and then it could be put into use??

Thoughts please, or am I off one one again??          

[grenhouse]

I pay £26 a year, which is great, however most people don't blink at spending a fiver a day on fags, or a couple of pints is well over that now. Think also about a gym membership and all of the fitness you can get done down the lottie. Yes it is more than the average allotment but much cheaper than buying the land yourself!

I reckon I could still make back more than £260 a year in produce (just!  ) The allotment started off for me as a money saving thing, however it is now much more than that! I take my friends down there in the summer for a bit of PYO, regularly spend too much time chatting to everyone else aswell. Worth a fiver a week? Yes I would say!

steve