Can a City Council triple allotment rents to generate revenue for unrelated services?

[Kristen]

If you want to compare anything, compare only with the rent payable for tenanted agricultural properties in the area.

Good point - the council is not "farming" the land themselves, they are just seeking a tenant. Got it! In fact if they get £1,000 / hectare (which they can easily do, as I don't suppose any/many sites anywhere in the country are less than £25 / full plot), then they are making as much money as they would from farming it, rather than just collecting rent from a tenant - without any of the capital tied up in farm machinery and risk of crop failure / price collapse etc.

I don't get the "sell it for houses" line, as it is just a one time windfall and then no income at all thereafter (well, I suppose they might argue that they would get Rates - but they have to provide expensive services in return for that ...)

[alldigging]

Allotment act says something about cost..

[Aberdeenplotter]

At £300 per plot, that if my sums are correct comes out at £4800 per acre. 2.4 acres per hectare. That is almost £10k per hectare
Totally outrageous.

[Aberdeenplotter]

Allotment act says something about cost..

Not in Scotland.

[bario1]

If there's anything anyone on here can do then please let us know.

Thanks VAMP(!?),

I'm not a fan of canvassing, but there is an online petition, and every signature counts! This particular issue is local to Edinburgh, but the general trend seems to be quite widespread - the sooner councils realise that people will kick up a fuss if they try to hike allotment rents, the better for all of us!



https://you.38degrees.org.uk/p/edinallotments

[sparrow100]

Have signed that and shared it on FB. Approx £200,000 from local taxpayers is nothing to be sneezed at, I can see why they are trying.

[Knight of Albion]

It seems very unfair. Many of those using the allotments will be on lower incomes and least able to afford such an increase. Indeed at that rate of increase, for many it might well tilt the economics against growing their own.
I think this point should be highlighted.

Going green and trying to eat more healthily are things that should be lauded and promoted, not penalised.

[Kristen]

I agree, indeed I would be happy if allotments were subsided, but this exercise has informed me that at £25 p.a. for a full sized plot the allotment "owner" is making a good income. I expect that folk can easily grow £25 worth of produce from a full sized allotment, so from the allotmenteer's perspective I doubt that would be regarded as expensive ("hardship", as ever, needs to be funded/subsidised separately IMHO, I think that in general folk should pay a "reasonable" fee for things, otherwise there is no respect for them)

Struggling to see it would gain enough traction for a private members bill, but maybe there is an MP who would take up the cause and cap allotment rents, or at least the rate of rent rises.

We have a really nice allotment site in our village. The village is small (population = 500-ish), there are only 3 or 4 allotments that are used (I suppose 50% of houses in the village have large enough gardens to grow veg, and some do do that - me included). We have tried advertising the availability of allotments in the nearest town (population 45,000), 10 minutes drive away - no takers (maybe they have allotment availability in the town, I've not checked), so the majority of our site is just gathering dust ...

[alldigging]

We have tried advertising the availability of allotments in the nearest town (population 45,000), 10 minutes drive away - no takers (maybe they have allotment availability in the town, I've not checked), so the majority of our site is just gathering dust ...

Did you advertise via the nearest sites to you?

[sparrow100]

Kristen, I think you're comparing apples with pears and coming up with strawberries. If you live in a small village where large gardens are common, I am not surprised you have vacant plots.

If you look back at recent rent info, the Edinburgh rent has already been tripled to give the Council a surplus, so this isn't about subsidy. Neither has a notional harvest value ever been used in an equation in rent rationale that I can see.

A full plot in Edinburgh is smaller than the traditional 10 rods, and a half plot there would equate to a quarter plot on my site at 50sqm. There are about 1,400 plots (varying sizes) in a densely-populated city of nearly 500,000 so no wonder they are in demand. Doesn't mean that they should be charged multiples of the national average for the privilege of working them, to my mind. My borough has nearly the same number of plots for a third as many residents and my particular site's waiting list is 5 years, partly because it's quite central.

Am not sure where the private members bill is mooted, but probably I haven't read the thread properly - I'd more advocate lobbying the Councillors, local MPs and getting the local press involved.

[Kristen]

Did you advertise via the nearest sites to you?

Not something I am involved with in the village, but a guy on the committee told me that they had tried every avenue they could think of to find more tenants; allotment sites in town have had waiting lists [in some cases more than a year] although the council did lease some additional land recently which has eased the waiting list latterly - anyway, the committee's thought was that they would be doing folk in the wider locality a favour offering plots outside the normal catchment area requirement ... but no takers.

Kristen, I think you're comparing apples with pears and coming up with strawberries. If you live in a small village where large gardens are common, I am not surprised you have vacant plots.

Indeed, and apologies as it was not my intention to appear to make a direct comparison. I was only wanting to make the point that our allotment committee is disappointed that despite their best efforts they haven't been able to make our vacant plots available to anyone nearby.

If you look back at recent rent info, the Edinburgh rent has already been tripled to give the Council a surplus, so this isn't about subsidy

Sorry, that wasn't the point I was trying to make. I was just stating my view that I had no personal objection to subsidies (in case someone thought I had an agenda for raising prices as my calculations suggest that £25 per plot is a very good income for the Council, but it seems unlikely that are many rents that are that low, lets alone at the even lower price equivalent to the rent that a tenant farmer might pay)

Neither has a notional harvest value ever been used in an equation in rent rationale that I can see.

I agree. To clarify: I was considering how tenants might justify £25 for rent, and not that the value of potential crops should be a factor in deciding the price.

Am not sure where the private members bill is mooted, but probably I haven't read the thread properly - I'd more advocate lobbying the Councillors, local MPs and getting the local press involved.

I don't think it was raised earlier in the thread. My understanding is that currently the Secretary of State will take into account the views of the National Allotment Society when a council is proposing to dispose of an allotment site, but that is as far as it currently goes. If the council's aim, in raising rents, is to dispose of the site then perhaps the law could be improved to prevent that, or to cap rent rises.

[VolesAteMyPeas]

Petition signed! Shared on FB too.

[Aberdeenplotter]

My understanding is that currently the Secretary of State will take into account the views of the National Allotment Society when a council is proposing to dispose of an allotment site, but that is as far as it currently goes.

This is not the case in Scotland Government sanction is not needed.