Bucksburn Allotments Association

As the end of the grow­ing sea­son approaches, Frank Taylor warns that allot­ment hold­ers in Aber­deen may shortly find them­selves in a quandary.

It has become pub­lic know­ledge (as con­firmed by the coun­cil to the local press) that Aber­deen City Coun­cil does not have and never has had any reg­u­la­tions for the man­age­ment of its allot­ments that have been form­ally con­firmed by the Scot­tish Par­lia­ment at Holyrood — or indeed at West­min­ster. Obvi­ously, the most con­ten­tious factor arising from this situ­ation relates to allot­ment rents.

In response to a par­lia­ment­ary ques­tion lodged by Dr Nanette Milne to John Swin­ney, the Scot­tish Fin­ance Min­is­ter, con­firmed that local author­it­ies are not entitled to col­lect allot­ment rents under reg­u­la­tions which had not pre­vi­ously been form­ally con­firmed by the Scot­tish gov­ern­ment. As Aber­deen City Coun­cil have no such reg­u­la­tions that have been form­ally con­firmed, it fol­lows that the allot­ment rent demands issued by the City Coun­cil are not leg­ally binding.

Allot­ment hold­ers who refuse to meet these illegal rent demands may be con­cerned that they may be sued for unpaid rent or be evicted from their allot­ments for non pay­ment. How­ever, they can rest easy, as reg­u­la­tions which have not been con­firmed are there­fore not leg­ally enforceable.

There are also other prob­lems for an allot­ment hold­ing local author­ity without estab­lished reg­u­la­tions. The com­mon­est com­plaint raised by allot­ment hold­ers relates to the con­di­tion of plots neg­lected by their ten­ants, giv­ing rise to weed infest­a­tion which rap­idly spreads to adjoin­ing plots.

John Swin­ney, in response to another par­lia­ment­ary ques­tion lodged by Dr Milne, con­firmed that such ten­ants can­not be evicted from their plots if they do not cul­tiv­ate them unless there is in place a reg­u­la­tion stat­ing how plots should to be cultivated.

In addi­tion, without such a reg­u­la­tion, local author­it­ies can­not recover from out­go­ing ten­ants the cost of return­ing ill-kept plots to a state of good cul­tiv­a­tion and fer­til­ity. With proper reg­u­la­tions, the Coun­cil would be in a pos­i­tion to fund the clear­ance of vacant allot­ments in order that new ten­ants were tak­ing on clean plots instead of the more com­mon situ­ation where the plot alloc­ated is a weed infes­ted jungle.

The appar­ent lun­acy of not hav­ing such con­firmed reg­u­la­tions can presently be seen on the Sclat­tie Quarry Allot­ment site in Bucks­burn. Aber­deen For­ward, using a grant provided from the Cli­mate Chal­lenge Fund and using labour provided by volun­teers and by people under com­munity ser­vice orders have spent a great deal of time clear­ing a couple of derel­ict allot­ments on the site. How­ever, imme­di­ately adja­cent to these allot­ments, are another two which are head high in rose­bay wil­low herb and other nox­ious weeds. Unfor­tu­nately, the ten­ants who have allowed these plots to get into that state can­not be evicted or obliged to clean them up.

Of course, Cli­mate Chal­lenge fund­ing would not have been required if the requis­ite reg­u­la­tions were in place and enforced to keep allot­ments in good order both dur­ing and at ter­min­a­tion of tenancies.

Bucks­burn allot­ment hold­ers have tried to engage the Coun­cil in order to resolve these mat­ters but the Coun­cil a) refuses to accept that it has made any reg­u­la­tions at all and b) refuses to reply to com­mu­nic­a­tions des­pite dir­ect con­tact with the Chief Executive.

One would think that cent­ral gov­ern­ment might give a lead to local author­it­ies but get­ting replies to cor­res­pond­ence from there is equally dif­fi­cult. A let­ter sent to Envir­on­ment Min­is­ter Roseanna Cun­ning­ham, on the same sub­ject on 18^th Decem­ber 2009 presently remains unanswered.

The whole situ­ation beg­gars belief.

For fur­ther information :

The par­lia­ment­ary ques­tions and answers referred to can be accessed on: http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx Ques­tions & Answers Search and by typ­ing in “allot­ments” at ques­tion text.

The situ­ation regard­ing coun­cils being unable to enforce uncon­firmed reg­u­la­tions is covered in sec­tion 1(1)(d) of the 1922 Allot­ments (Scot­land) Act Allot­ments (Scot­land) Act 1922 (c.52) and also in sec­tion 6(1) Allotments(Scotland) Act1892 Allot­ments (Scot­land) Act 1892 (c.54).

The exact word­ing of the Act is : ‘Provided also, that all reg­u­la­tions made under this sec­tion shall not be of any force unless and until they have been con­firmed by the Sec­ret­ary for Scot­land, after such pub­lic­a­tion and inquiry, and with such modi­fic­a­tions (if any) as the said Sec­ret­ary shall determine.’

If you wish to con­tact the Bucks­burn Allot­ments Asso­ci­ation the site can be accessed on: http://bucksburnallotments.co.uk/default.aspx