It took me a year - and when I went on I was number 11 on the list.
Mind you, I took over one half of 6 allotments this old boy had accumulated (which I thought wasn't really in the spirit of the thing).
Now the waiting list is in the 60's !
Northern_Lad
Joined: 13 Dec 2004 Posts: 14210 Location: Somewhere
Posted: Tue Apr 01, 08 10:28 am Post subject:
Typical appears to be a couple of years wait.
However, if you are on good terms with a current holder (or 10) then you can often 'look after' someone else's plot for 50 or 60 years. Not strictly playing by the rules, but...
I got mine by knowing the right people. There was a completely abandoned block of plots almost behind a freind's house. Her hubbie works with the bloke that runs the local allotment association and they organised to get the plots active again. I overheard them talking about it and asked for one of the plots. There's still one available, but would involve clearing 10 foot high bramble off the whole thing.
Six seems rather a lot but given the now common practice of making a standard allotment much smaller than they used to be I can understand someone wanting three or four.
(IIRC a standard allotment used to be 10 rods but now 100-120 m2 seems to be increasingly common)
We got ours sooner than we should have by charm and regular contact to see how the list was looking
They've chopped our old plot in half, as they have most around the site. Just before we left ours, the list was up at sixty something for the Camberley area.
Joined: 28 Oct 2004 Posts: 7824 Location: shropshire
Posted: Tue Apr 01, 08 11:06 am Post subject:
At our AGM last week it was announced that we have about 6 people waiting for a plot but then again we do have about 45 plots (some of those are then slit into halves) for a small place (population of about 4000) but as others have said looking keen and chatting to some of the locals seems to work wonders
lettucewoman
Joined: 26 Sep 2006 Posts: 7834 Location: Tiptoe in the Forest!!
Posted: Tue Apr 01, 08 11:37 am Post subject:
4 years and counting....
Blacksmith
Joined: 25 Jan 2005 Posts: 5025 Location: Berkshire
Posted: Tue Apr 01, 08 11:46 am Post subject:
Got mine straight away........ was in very poor condition, couch grass and mares tail everywhere.
Our allotment committee are pretty hot at evicting those who do not keep their plot cultivated.
Didn't have the time to keep mine up so I gave up.
there was no waiting list on our site and loads of plots avaliable when we took ours on. There still isn't a list and there are some odd plots free but far fewer than there use to be. We've noticed this change in the 4 years we've had ours
The site is very old; about 100 years old I think. The plots are huge 50pole strips of two different widths, one double the other. Some of these have now been divided down. We've a 30 pole one with a 10 pole one at each end that is let to others.
The half allotment we've just got is part of a new site, that has been set up by local villagers. So no haven't had to wait - and to be honest wouldn't really have considered an allotment if the opportunity hadn't come up. Had thought we would have to make do with the garden.
Whilst one part of the council have been supportive, the planners have been a complete nightmare... (limit to the number of allotments allowed to have sheds, all sheds have to be of same design and shade of brown.. umpteenth specification detail about the temporary road surface, even upset planning rules by having a manure load delivered etc etc.) I think part of the planning issues have been because some villagers objected and were staright onto the couincil as soon as they could find anything that might have contravened the rules... which all seemed a bit OTT. But never mind - after about a year or more's background work the site is open and fast becoming a hive of activity - talking of which - there will be bees as well!
So I guess if there is enough demand/interest, you can identify a potential site, and there is the will to do it... setting up a new site is one way of avoiding waiting lists... (gues that's a lot of "Ifs"!)
Just remebered... a friend of mine has also just got a plot on a new site. It's a small private site in a village that has been set up by a local garden centre/nursery that had some land to spare... Though can't see taht many garden centres have land to spare!
Last edited by wizz on Tue Apr 01, 08 12:24 pm; edited 1 time in total