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:
- Crimes
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.
- Civil wrongs
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.
- Problems caused by people who break the rules of tenancy (or the terms of a Local Management Agreement)
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:
- If the council officer thought that there were possible substance to the complaint, then they would contact the accused.
- The officer would name the accuser.
- The officer would give the details of the accusation.
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
