PPA is a “No Toilets” site.

A Place To Grow Your Own

There’re no Council-maintained or Committee-maintained toilets on the PPA site, and the plot rental’s therefore cheaper than on sites where there are.

However, quite some years ago now, the Riverside Community Gardens – we understand – with the assent of the then PPAA Committee, but nothing more, built a composting toilet shed, in an unused corner of the site, near to Plot 90, for the particular needs of their quite numerous volunteers. They very kindly and generously made the facility available to all plot holders on the site too. (RCG are completely autonomous, and independent plot holders like everyone else. They’re not affiliated to the PPAA Committee, nor otherwise connected with the general running of the site. Moreover, if RCG have since made more private arrangements closer to their plots, then there’s never been any “handover” or discussion of this facility as a legacy for adoption by the PPAA Committee, and our present understanding is that Allotments Officer once remarked that it should never have been there anyway.)

Whatever, we’re sorry to have to report, that this facility’s now apparently been trashed, and treated with reckless disregard or even deliberate nuisance, and left in a state resembling the “dirty protests” of prisoners from time-to-time. Whether this is a result of plot holders’ acts or those of intruders to the site is unclear.

Volunteers have now listened to several, sometimes angry complaints from aggrieved plot holders, but we must emphasise, that owing to the site’s “No Toilets” status, however unpleasant and inconvenient this position might be, no one is being deprived of any entitlement under their tenancy by the fact of this toilet’s no longer being usable, and it’s absolutely not the job of any unpaid PPAA volunteer to maintain or to restore it.

Furthermore, we’ve every sympathy with the RCG volunteers, as to their being presented with this disgusting filth, and if they’ve given up maintaining the toilet in despair as a result, then we fully understand that.

We haven’t inspected the toilet ourselves, but from the descriptions given it would appear to be a serious health hazard, and we’d therefore caution everyone against entering it.

PPA Website Team

9 thoughts on “PPA is a “No Toilets” site.”

  2. Hi Everyone,

    Just to clarify a few points following on from the above post and comments. Cardiff Salad Garden (CSG) took over management of Riverside Community Garden in April 2024, during that handover we met on site with Cardiff Council representative Celia Hart who oversees all Cardiff Councils allotments. It was agreed at this meeting that CSG and as a result Riverside Community Garden would have no responsibility for the toilet near plot 90. Celia agreed that this was the correct way forward, whilst acknowledging historically it may have been linked to RCG, Grow Cardiff did not install or maintain it during their management of RCG . At this meeting the toilet was already in a poor state of cleanliness and repair and Celia felt it needed to be removed and responsibility would be passed to Cardiff Council.

    RCG has a compost urinal in the far corner, near to the pond. We have also as noted in the comments a shed with a portable toilet. This is open when we run sessions for our volunteers and we are responsible for keeping this cleaned and regularly emptied (at our own cost).

    We would in the future support applying for funding for an accessible compost toilet for all but concerns around management would need to be discussed as would a range of permissions need to be sought. We are not in a position to pursue this at the moment but Celia supported this idea in principle and we have it as a long term goal.
    Thanks,
    Sophie at Cardiff Salad Garden

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  3. The compost toilet has been there for many years and is valued by many plotholders (confirmed in conversation with neighbouring gardeners). The consensus is that it be allowed to remain.
    We realise that this means it may need cleaning up and repairing but hopefully this can be managed

    [Edit: the results of the survey conducted by emailing 228 subscribers do not support the claims made in this comment]

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    1. Hi Jane,

      I’d suggest that you organise a volunteer group to do that then. You’ll need to get the necessary consents (these were not obtained when the toilet was first built, we understand) from Allotments, building regs, public health and the rest, plus the volunteer effort to do what’s needed.

      The Local Management Agreement is absolutely clear that such things are nothing to do with the Association, so what the justification for imposing such a burden on it into the future without limit would be is very hard to explain, I think.

      As the heading states, PPA is a No Toilets Site as designated and defined by the Council, and distinct from a With Toilets Site.

      It is not “the” compost toilet. It is an ex-RCG compost toilet, put up and maintained for a time under the circumstances that Sophie has explained in detail.

      Please reread the article and other comments carefully, Jane.

      Whatever, if anyone’s out there who feels strongly about this, especially if they’re willing to join a volunteer group to restore and to maintain this toilet, then please do comment below.

      Thanks all.

      Admin

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        1. Hi Claire,

          Well, it’s just that those are the facts, and if I could have thought of a cosier way to put them then I would have done.

          The PPAA, according to the Council’s Guide, have a paramount responsibility. That is, to keep plots occupied and worked. That involves volunteers trying to get them into some semblance of order to be let, and with sometimes forty a year, we don’t even have enough volunteer time to give those jobs what they’re really owed.

          So to devote money and money’s worth – unpaid work – to something which is actually contrary to the Council’s intentions for the site, let alone not being an objective of our Constitution, nor a requirement under our Local Management Agreement would arguably be in derogation of that Agreement, which is a deed.

          We have two signatories to that legally binding document (Treasurer and Site Rep), and if they were actively to sanction derogation from it, then in principle they could, it seems, be open to legal action.

          Jane isn’t one of those signatories, nor are the other six Committee members.

          However, the issue is on the agenda for the next Committee meeting nevertheless.

          (The nearest public toilet is some six minutes walk away from the northeast gate, at Tesco)

          Admin

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        2. Claire, as you demanded this morning, I’ve removed the photo of your plot from the slide show titled “A satisfying selection of some of the beautiful thriving plots on PPA”

          You could have simply messaged to request this, or asked me quietly. There really was no need for you and Barry to waylay me, and subject me to an aggressive, expletive-laden rant this morning, and I truly don’t believe that a reasonable person would ever say that the shot’s inclusion in the show amounted to “harassment” as you proclaimed.

          Whatever, if you have what you consider to be a more photogenic shot of your plot, then please do email it, and I’ll include that instead.

          Admin

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