Allotments, a very real threat to our community

[Geordie_Rob]

I just enquired about my position on the waiting list & I'm 41st out of 189 for a site with 91 plots. Been waiting 5 years now. The lady did however inform me that they're soon doing the latest round of visits where they inspect plots & any that look abandoned or unkept will be getting letters saying they'll be losing their plot if they don't improve it within 28 days.

The trouble I find is people at sites end up with 2 or 3 plots. When one is to be given up, their mate's take it over & it doesn't get offered to people on the list.

Interestingly my council has a number of "un-occupyable" (not sure if occupyable is a real word or if I just made it up) plots. In 2 cases there is a whole site where they aren't used. The buggers won't let me have one of those plots & sort it myself. Instead they spend an average of £600 (taken from last years allotment report) to bring them back into use. I have my own bloody gardening business. Ill do the work for nowt. But no. "It's not allowed".

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NR, I'm sure the allotment act specifies 5 local rate payers. The council often get round this though by saying there aren't enough funds, or simply ignoring them. Illegal? yup. Do they care? Nope.