Pontcanna Permanent Allotments, for gardeners, organic or traditional
It’s a mystery, who organised, or did the repair work – a new towing handle – to the heavy trolley. (We’ll replace the wood before long too.)
Comments are open, so please step forward, the fine person who made this happen 🙂
PPA Website Team
At the suggestion of a plot holder, this article has been re-written to make it more readable for people with dyslexia. Further details have also been added.
Happily, most plot holders on PPA enjoy friendly relations with their neighbours. They also have problem free dealings with PPAA Committee, and with the Council, simply by following the terms of their tenancies.
From time to time though, problems will always emerge, which can’t be settled by anything that the sufferer might do or say themselves. So they will turn to others for help.
There are three kinds of wrongs, where something can be done if there’s evidence:
If a plot holder should be the victim of a crime (for instance if tools, produce, or something else were stolen from their plot), then they would need evidence of that crime. If they had that, then it would be up to them to report it to the police. PPAA Committee have found that the police won’t usually act on someone else’s reporting it for them. For one thing, the police would likely see that as hearsay, and that isn’t admissible in Court. However, if the plot holder were to report it, then it would be helpful to everyone on the site if they also informed PPAA Committee, so that any due warnings could be announced.
All that said, if it were to be a plot holder, and not an intruder, who committed a crime on site, then they would also be seriously in breach of the allotments rules. So if anyone were to have reliable evidence of such a thing, then besides the police, they should also notify the Council and PPAA Committee.
If the police took the matter seriously, and issued a crime number, and especially if the offender were convicted, then the Council could be in a position to end their tenancy.
A plot holder might have a reason to take action against another under civil law, over something wrong, but which wasn’t a police matter because it wasn’t a crime. (Say, someone had posted damaging lies about them on social media.) Again, it would be their responsibility to take the needed legal action, usually by hiring a lawyer to take up the case. They would need to convince him or her that the facts were as they claimed too. Without other complications, this also wouldn’t be the concern of either PPAA Committee or the Council.
A plot holder could be caused problems by another tenant’s breaking the rules of tenancy, say by the growing of tall trees causing shading nuisance. If neither the plot holder themselves nor PPAA Committee could settle things, then the matter should be brought to the attention of the Council’s Allotments Officer. This is because the Tenancy Agreement is between the tenant and the Council, and not with PPAA Committee. In some cases PPAA Committee would refer it, but in others the displeased plot holder might wish to do that themselves, perhaps because their complaint was about someone who happened to be a Committee member.
(A plot holder could also have grounds to complain to the Council, if they had evidence that a Committee member had intentionally broken the terms of a Local Management Agreement for the site, say by the occupation of plots, off the record, for their own purposes.)
Plot holders should know, that if an accusation to the Council should be made against any plot holder by another, then the following would be likely to happen:
It would be unfair for the Council to do anything else, as no one would then be given the chance to defend themselves against any anonymous claim, whether it were groundless or not. However, this would be subject to due concern for the safety and well-being of the person complaining.
(Some might remember, that at the 2024 AGM, a person claimed to represent six people, who insisted on remaining anonymous. We were told that they had accusations against Committee members, but that they didn’t want the nature of those claims to be shared either. However, Allotments Officer’s Line Manager, Anthony Thomas spoke a little later, by ‘phone, with a Committee member. He said that no record of any accusation(s), against any Committee member(s), made by that person could be found. Whether or not that was owing to to the Council’s policy, as set out in the paragraph above, isn’t known.)
So this all boils down to the fact, that unless someone’s acts or failures fall into at least one of the three classes above, then there isn’t anything, about which anyone should do anything much, or over which their time need be spent. As an example, someone using pesticides or herbicides, with due care, near but not on an organic gardener’s plot would be such a thing.
PPA Website Team
There’s a backlog of necessary work relating to trees on PPA site. In quite a few cases, trees of a type wrongly planted by plot holders, often many years ago, or self-seeded, have been left to grow, and are now a problem. In some instances it would be unconscionable to expect the current plot holder to remove them, but in others not. There’re also dead or dying trees around the site boundary, and otherwise attractive, landscape feature trees, which now have too many large, low-hanging branches causing excessive shade for nearby plot holders.
PPAA Committee have undertaken to begin a programme of works to resolve these difficulties. Volunteers have been able to remove smaller trees and saplings on plots as they’ve become vacant, or where a plot holder had agreed that a given tree needed to go and asked for help to remove it, but the scale of some of the work clearly requires the attention of a professional contractor.
PPAA have broken down the work into classes, and the first one envisaged to be undertaken would be the removal of the most troublesome low-hanging branches of the large trees growing on PPA site beside Road Three, and causing excessive shading to plots 82 to 90. It’s held that the shading can be sufficiently eased without affecting the landscape outline of the trees, none of which – PPAA understand – are subject to Tree Preservation Orders or in a Conservation Area. This will allow PPAA to judge the affordability of the work, and to budget for further classes and extents of work around the site. Plot holders with disallowed trees, that is, excessively large fruit trees, conifer, broadleaf – e.g. oak, ash, bay, hazel, hawthorn – or willow trees on their plots, and who wish to be considered for assistance in their removal, are asked to contact PPAA Committee. (Priority for help is probably likely to be given to plots burdened by larger trees planted or maintained by previous tenants, and depending on demand, the help may have to be rationed, so a reply may not be given for a while.)
Trees – which should be removed – will, from now on, be noted as a matter of course during plot inspections in any case, and the relevant plot holders notified of the need for their removal.
PPA Website Team
Present: Sue Pasek (Acting Chair), Wendy Gunter, Mike Powell, Jane Davies, Martin Pasek, Keith Ball
Apologies: Gordon Goldsmith, Nerys Lloyd Pierce, Lewis Evans
The meeting opened at 19:00
Previous Minutes:
Matters covered below
Chairman’s Report:
Covered by Site Secretary report
Site Secretary’s report (shared role):
Sue reported that during September three plots were let, one plot declined, with two remaining lettable vacant plots. Plot viewings are ongoing.
Two applications have been approved for structures.
The sale of Autumn planting garlic and onions had been a success with all of the stock sold within ten days.
Treasurer’s report: Wendy
Funds remain healthy with no substantial expenditures yet this financial year. However planned projects by the PPAA in the next few months will see a larger spend.
Trees: Mike
Mike has obtained a quote for phase one of tree works on the site. Waste to be chipped and left on site, likewise any logs. The rate was approved by the Committee and dates for phase one of works will be organised. A website article will discuss the planned works in more depth.
Water: Martin
The Council have now raised a ticket for repairs to the mains water leak. No dates have yet been given for this work.
The PPAA Committee agreed that the site water would be turned off for the winter months on the 1st of November 2024.
Manure: Wendy
Wendy has spoken with the Riding School Manager (many thanks to Nerys for making the initial contact) and continuation of supply confirmed. The PPAA Committee voted to continue to offer a financial token of goodwill on delivery.
Complaints Procedures: Wendy
It was considered that a reminder to plot holders of how to deal with both criminal and civil complaints by plot holders – and with grievances under the rules of tenancy – should be made, and a concise article on this subject is expected to be published on the PPA website in the near future.
With respect to the large number of possible miscellaneous breaches of tenancy by a plot holder, Wendy suggested that a generic letter, stating the issue be sent from the Committee, and only if that failed to rectify the situation would the matter be referred to the Council. (A draft is to be presented at the next meeting.)
AOB:
Mike wanted to remind plot holders that there is a works party to clear plot 112b on Thursday 15th October, 10:00. All welcome, and any help gratefully received.
Mike asked for an update on the nine plots issued with End of Tenancy letters by the Council on August the 1st. Sue reported that she had written to the Allotments Officer asking for a status update but at the time of the meeting had not received a reply.
Wendy requested that plot holders bringing cars on site use the allocated parking areas. Parking on the access roads is only for unloading and loading.
There was no further business and the meeting ended at 20:10.
The PPAA Committee meetings are regularly scheduled for the first Tuesday in the month, the next being on 5th November 2024, at 1900, at the Butcher’s Arms, Canton.
