Fw: [Diggers350] Green Party cuts

Wed May 16 22:39:49 BST 2012

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Mark Allotments 
To: 'david bangs' ; 'Simon Fairlie' ; kim.icity at googlemail.com 
Cc: 'diggers' ; 'greenwomble' ; 'Beth Tilston' 
Sent: Wednesday, May 16, 2012 10:03 AM
Subject: RE: [Diggers350] Green Party cuts

Hi,

I'm Mark Carroll. I know Dave Bangs from Brighton and I have met Simon Fairlie as I visited Tinkers Bubble many years ago and met him there.

I am now on the Brighton and Hove allotment federation and thats my letter to the Argus at the bottom of this conversation !

The 'subsidy' as the council chooses to call it, relates to the amount of extra money they claim to spend on the allotments service above and beyond the rent they collect.

These are the figures thay gave us;

  a.. Two manual staff: £37,000 
  b.. Allotment officer: £28,500 
  c.. Travel for the allotment officer: £500 
  d.. Premises [largely water]: £31,500 
  e.. Transport: £3000 
  f.. Supplies and Services: £25,000 [includes £6660 to allotment federation] 
  g.. Third party payments [contractors & skip hire]: £ 27,500 

Total expenditure: £153,000 

Current income £91,500 plus £61,500 proposed increase, total £153,000

So they claim that the 'subsidy' is £61,500. Calling it a subsidy is a bit rich. The council are obliged by law to provide the allotments service, they are in fact required by the 1908 Allotments and Smallholders Act to provide a 'sufficient' provision. We have 2000+ people in Brighton on the waiting list, so it's quite obvious there isn't a sufficient provision ! But challenging them on this in court would probably need a judicial review. 

The figures are dodgy anyway.. We have noticed some odd discrepancies in the water bills for instance.. Where sites with 50 plots have water bills 3 times the amount of sites with 300 plots ! It is suggested that other council buildings are using water included in the allotments bill. Also the two manual staff seem to do other work for the council.

The planned rise of £70 was beaten because the Labour and Coop made an amendment to the budget,( due to the noise made by the protest) which was voted through, allotments rents will go up by £4.

As for the allotments officer, I don't have the same view on them as Dave Bangs it seems. From my experience I don't see any empathy with plot holders. At  a recent meeting the allotment officer David Cooper said that 'he hadn't seen any allotments that had impressed him'. So he doesn't have eyes for the rich and varied food production and wildlife green spaces that many people have created. There have also been many complaints from people saying they have received 'toxic' letters from the officer. Rude and Draconian.  The last allotments officer acted like he was a law unto himself. He introduced new policies in secret, by getting a minimum quorum in secret and passing new rules.. he introduced a policy of 'plot chopping' so there are now only half plots available to rent in Brighton... no full plots.. every plot that comes up for rent gets chopped in two. He also spent £3000 of allotment funding on one person to write 12 email bulletins on gardening tips ! It beggars belief. I could go on for pages, from my perspective the allotments officer is not on the side of the allotmenteers at all.

Best Regards,

Mark

From: david bangs [mailto:dave.bangs at virgin.net] 
Sent: 16 May 2012 08:13
To: Simon Fairlie; kim.icity at googlemail.com; mark Allotments
Cc: diggers; greenwomble; Beth Tilston
Subject: Re: [Diggers350] Green Party cuts

Allotments are a service to the poor. They are not private landlord's commercial lettings. 

I don't like your use of the term 'pen-pushers', Simon. A worker at a desk is no less a worker than a worker with a scythe !!

The Brighton allotments service has been managed in a threadbare way for years by single harassed administrators squeezed between their empathy with allotmentees and their control function for an under-budgetted council service.

I don't remember the latest on rents after the council's partial climb-down. Someone else can answer that, perhaps,

Dave Bangs

  ----- Original Message ----- 

  From: Simon Fairlie 

  To: david bangs 

  Cc: diggers ; greenwomble ; Beth Tilston 

  Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2012 11:36 PM

  Subject: Re: [Diggers350] Green Party cuts

  Why do allotments need subsidy? They are agricultural land and the rental value of agricultural land (fenced and with water) is normally about £100 per acre. What are Brighton charging per acre? Are they charging for hope-value? Or is the "subsidy" to keep pen-pushers in a job?

  Simon 

  On 15 May 2012, at 11:18, david bangs wrote:

  Green Womble,

  You are quite right about the Brighton Greens and their attempt at an allotment charge hike...but that is the least of the damage they are doing...with a cuts budget that hurts folk who are already hurting very badly from the recession and looking for a fighting alternative leadership...and the Greens promise us worse cuts in the next few years.

  You'll have to look for solutions to the left of the Green Party if you want a solid response to the attack on the poor...to folk like George Barratt, the Barking Labour councillor expelled from the party for opposing the Labour Council cuts budget, and now leading the local fightback against the cuts...

  Dave Bangs 

    ----- Original Message -----

    From: greenwomble

    To: diggers350 at yahoogroups.com

    Sent: Friday, May 11, 2012 12:44 PM

    Subject: [Diggers350] first take their land then charge them rent,then make them jealous of ea other.

    That's mostly what all the posts on here that people post here are about.

    the little and seemingly big squabbles in bubbles happening within
    the rent system.

    hardly anyone gets to the crux.

    which is:

    take their land/life away from the people, then make them exceedingly
    grateful to the new owners who make them pay rent for its use.

    Rent = tax, protection money, interest debt, and what we call rent. (a
    note that describes interest debt as rent: a sum is loaned, a rent
    called interest is paid for a time period, at the end of which the sum
    which is 'rented' is paid back)

    Were we all really born to pay for our lives!

    Winstanley and all the recent historical natives didn't think we were.

    Don't forget we all were natives once.

    We have b earth right.

    money, at any level excludes.

    here is my reason for posting. on the rent prices of allotments:

    www theargus.co.uk/archive/2012/02/20/Letters+to+the+Editor+(argus_letters)/9539240.Raising_allotment_rents_is_one_hot_potato_for_a_Green_council/

    Raising allotment rents is
    one hot potato for a Green
    council
    I HAVE been a Green voter in
    Brighton all my adult life, and
    have put posters in my
    window and actively supported
    the Greens for more than 20
    years.
    The Green Party is the party
    of sustainability, of low carbon
    footprints, low food miles and
    locally-grown food. These
    make up the Green manifesto,
    along with a commitment to
    encourage allotments. This is
    why I voted for Green
    councillors.
    So why is Brighton and Hove
    City Council , run by the
    Greens, about to cut the
    council subsidy for allotments,
    resulting in a 65% rent rise?
    You now have to grow £110
    worth of vegetables to break
    even. Surely allotment
    growing underlines the basic
    principles of the Green
    movement? Surely this should
    be one of the things the
    Greens should be
    encouraging?
    The more people encouraged
    to grow food locally, the
    better for us as individuals
    and the planet. Every potato I
    eat from my allotment is a
    potato not flown in from Egypt
    by big supermarkets. This
    should be encouraged. In fact,
    the council subsidy should,
    according to Green principles,
    be increased.
    In my opinion, allotments
    should be heavily subsidised
    or even free. How else are we
    going to get people to start
    growing food locally? If we
    want to feed ourselves in a
    sustainable, low-carbon way,
    and to encourage
    responsibility for food
    production, promoting
    allotments is the obvious way
    to go. Instead the council is
    cutting help for allotments.
    I am flabbergasted, shocked
    and disillusioned. When...................continues

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