• Greenwich Council have made it clear that they will no longer subsidise the allotments in the borough to a greater extent than any other council run leisure or recreational facilities available to residents. As a result allotment rents increased substantially in July 2011 and again in April 2012.
• As a consequence of this policy Greenwich borough residents now have some of the most expensive allotments in South East England. A 5 rod plot (125 sq metres) in Greenwich costs £100 in 2012 whilst in adjoining boroughs Bexley and Lewisham the cost is £25 and £42.50 respectively.

As a result of much complaint from allotment holders in the borough about the relative lack of consultation that took place before the rent increase was voted through by the council cabinet the council established an allotment forum in 2011 to avoid similar issues in the future. Graham Farrant is the Pippenhall representative on the forum.

To date there have been four meetings of the forum but critically the council have yet to re-issue a revised self management agreement so that allotment sites within the borough could understand what would be required of them if partial self management were to be agreed and to see if savings could be made which could then help to keep rents down.

The council have indicated that they will may need allotment sites in the borough to take over some aspects of site management if further rent increases are to be avoided in the future. Savings have already been made by no longer offering rubbish skips and by reducing the frequency of mowing of grass verges. The largest costs to run the allotments are the cost of the administering the allotment service, site maintenance (council and sub contracted) and the water rates for all of the sites. This last item alone came to over £25,000 in financial year 2010/11). The only opportunity to make significant savings would be to look at ways to reduce these three main areas of expenditure but this would inevitably require some difficult decisions for both the council and plotholders throughout the borough.

One requirement that has been establised for potential self management is that each site would need to have an active allotment association which represents the majority of plot holders with an elected committee of officers.

It has been suggested that a sub section of EAHGS could be established for exactly this purpose.

We probably have until the autumn of 2012 to explore this and take action towards self management or I suspect we could be faced with further rent increases in the future.

The next meeting of the allotment forum was due to take place in April/May but this failed to happen, the reason subsequently given was that there were new councillors who needed to give the council officers direction in this area.

As I write this it is the second week of October and following my communication with Councillor O'Mara (she has taken over responsibility for Parks and Open Spaces from Councillor Fahey) a meeting of the Allotment Forum has now been scheduled for Thursday 8th November 2012.

I have asked for the following two issues to be put on the agenda:

• Council plans for allotment rents for the year 2013/14
• Update on the revision of the self management agreement that the council committed to in 2011.

Graham Farrant October 11th 2012

Update 12th November 2012

At the Greenwich Allotment Forum meeting on the 8th November the council confirmed there will be no increase in allotment rents next year. They also provided a draft of a revised self management agreement and agreed to provide current rent income and expenditure details for the Pippenhall site. Once this information is to hand I will update this page with more details on whether a self management agreement for our site would have any potential, and critically if rents could be lower than the current council rates.

If there is any potential the next step after this would be to hold a meeting to explain to all plotholders the situation, opportunities and risk. The council also confirmed that any site that wanted to become self managed would have to have a significant majority of plotholders in favour.

The next meeting of the Greenwich Allotment Forum is scheduled for late January- if you have any important issues that may affect allotment tenants in the borough please e-mail us with the details on info@eahgs.org.uk so they can be raised in the forum. Please note Pippenhall site specific issues should be discussed with our site rep, Graham, or with Sheila Schubert at the council.

Update May 2013

As yet no meeting of the GAF has been scheduled for 2013.

As of April 2017 there are no further plans for self management of the Pippenhall site as there would be no financial benefit to tenants.

Graham Farrant