Month: August 2026

Our attention’s been drawn to this page of the Council’s website.

It clarifies and explains some confusing aspects of the process, e.g. the procedure in the case of joint or multiple tenancies, and is very helpful.

Our thanks go to plot holder Louise Shenstone for flagging this to the Committee.

PPA Website Team

Everyone – particularly drivers – are advised that contractors Malcolm Thomas Ltd. will be on site reinstating the tarmac from their work of a few years ago, which the Council didn’t cover on that occasion. PPAA Committee have decided to fund this work themselves, and were very pleased with a quote of only £250 plus VAT.

Drivers are advised not to attempt to drive down this track until the work is finished, as even if it were open, their vehicles may be trapped if it were to begin after this time.

Update: the work is now complete and the tarmac reinstated at the necessary points.

PPA Website Team

There are a number of issues with the new Tenancy Agreements being sent out by Cardiff Council, that multiple plot holders have raised with the PPAA Committee:

• In the case of existing joint or multiple tenancies only one person is named on the new tenancy document.*
• The Date of Birth is left blank, although the Council have date of birth information.
• No rent information is given. Also there is no concession information. Thus tenants are asked to sign a legal agreement but without the cost being known. 
• The process makes the use of the Welsh language difficult. The legality of this is questionable.

A Tenancy Agreement is between the plot holder and the Council, and the PPAA Committee are not involved in its implementation. All queries and amendments regarding the new Tenancy Agreement should be therefore sent to the Council at Allotments@cardiff.gov.uk and not to PPAA Committee, who will shortly be making their own representations to the Council on these and related points.

Mike Powell, PPAA Site Representative

*Update: it’s been found, that after the first tenant invited to sign has done so, a further email is sent to the joint tenant to do so too (assuming that the Council have an address.) However, as far as we know, no one was informed that this is what would happen…

(Tenants may also find this previous article helpful.)

Admin

As we enter peak wasp season, but also meet activity from other wildlife, it’s perhaps timely to remind all of the existence of this website page: Wasps, rats, other pests, and beneficial visitors e.g. bees. It explains what to do if a problem should arise.

Admin

Present: Gordon Goldsmith (Chair), Mike Powell (Site Representative), Wendy Gunter (Treasurer), Lewis Evans, Sue Pasek, Martin Pasek, Adrian Peters, Rhys Williams.

Apologies: None received.

The meeting opened at 19:00.

Matters arising from previous Minutes: 

To be covered in agenda.

Chair’s report:

• Gordon opened the meeting by welcoming Adrian as he attended for the first time.

Site Representative’s report:

• Mike attended GDPR (confidentiality of people’s data) and Orkastrate (the Council’s allotments tenancy management system) training on 20/7/2026, at Forest Farm Council office.

• He is now in possession of the tablet device (one per Site Representative, for accessing and managing the system). Currently it is “read only”, and therefore of somewhat restricted use. Improvements in its capacity are promised for the future, however.

• Not all information sent by email to Allotments Officer had been fed into the Orkastrate system. Some of this however, was nonetheless added while he was at Forest Farm.

• Two new tenancies have been issued. There are currently ten vacant plots, with two more to be given up later this year. No structure requests have been received.

• One waste removal session was organised at a cost of £360.

• CAHA (Cardiff Allotments Holders Association) met on 22/7/2026, and Mike attended.

• Outgoing CAHA officers were re-elected unopposed.

• The Council is now using an IT specialist to address issues with Orkastrate, and the meeting in general thought that progress was being made.

• The general consensus was that there was some progress being made with failures to bill tenants, but Mike wondered as to the extent of this.

• Re invoices, Adrian said that the Riverside Community Gardens Association were still waiting to change their Tenancy Agreement from Cardiff Salad Gardens to Riverside Community Gardens Association. Mike said that he would try to progress this.

• At the Sites Representatives’ meeting with the Council, to be held 12/08/26, CAHA will raise: The cost of Pest Control, and whether this is in or out of Parks Department budget, and also how the deposits from the new tenancies will be managed, for both locally managed and non locally managed sites respectively. 

Mike will raise the related situation of non-billing by the Council and the requirement to have paid the bill to receive a new tenancy agreement.

Treasurer’s report:

• Wendy reported that the PPAA bank account had a healthy balance.

Water Supply and Sewerage:

• Gordon extended thanks to the plot holders who have turned the water off overnight for several weeks, and to Martin for his work in liaising with the Council to ensure that the repairs were made. A full report on the works may be found here.

Delivery of manure:

• There was an unexpected delivery of manure, after the other allotment sites understood to be due to receive it could not accommodate the full amount. Fortunately Martin and Gordon just happened to be on site to make sure that the manure was delivered safely and to the correct pens.

New Contract roll out 2026:

• The Council have indicated that the rollout will start very soon.

• The Council have requested help from Mike re the contactability of some plot holders. They have now received several updated email addresses and first time email addresses from Mike – with help from Sue.

• The Council have promised – that for plot holders without email – the documents can be signed on a paper copy through the Site Representative. However, their numbers will be small, we understand.

• We understand that new Tenancy Agreements will be sent out by email for signature by “Docusign” (electronic, i.e. no paper needed signature). However, as it stands, Mike has no information that this process has yet begun.

Waste removal, skips etc:

• The Committee recognise that whatever our Tenancy Agreements may say about our needing to remove waste materials from site ourselves, there may be circumstances where it’s unreasonable to expect tenants to do this, e.g. where they have inherited structures from a previous tenant, but which have since dilapidated. The Committee are considering the various options to do justice to such encumbered gardeners, and so these remain under review.

Vacant Plot Clearing:

• At least eight plots need clearing. Others may follow from “Cultivate or Quit” terminations, and following the new tenancy rollout. 

• Only one volunteer joined Mike on 19/7/2026. A substantial amount of rubbish was removed from plot 48b which was later taken from site. Mike completed the clearing of this plot and also largely cleared 54b. The clearing of 144b is ongoing.     

• Another volunteer session will be organised for after school holidays and with – we hope – cooler weather.

• The amount of work may require paying for someone to clear plots.

• Vacant plot viewing will resume in September.

Green Truck Replacements:

• Following the disappearance of one of the recently purchased green trucks, a further two have been bought and labelled.

AOB:

• Adrian raised petty crime on site and its apparent increase.

• Martin proposed approaching a contractor to tarmac the areas on the main track left unsurfaced by previous excavations.

• Mike is to chase the issuing by the Council of terminations identified by the Cultivate or Quit process. Also the progress regarding plot 103a, that is, the related Council fly-tipping case, after two years of no apparent progress.

There was no further business, and the meeting ended at 20:13.

The next PPAA Committee meeting will be at 19:00 on Tuesday, 22nd September 2026, in the upstairs meeting room of The Cricketers, Cathedral Road, Cardiff.

Everyone on site will probably be pleased to hear that this serious problem has been resolved.

The leak had progressively worsened, and was losing about a cubic metre-and-a-half an hour of late, at a cost of £1.92 per cubic metre. Those fond of arithmetic can work out the annual cost of this to the Council Tax payers of Cardiff.

The contractors, Malcom Thomas Ltd., located the leak by successively halving the suspect length of pipe with isolating valves until they got it down to a length which could be economically replaced. They did the latter by threading smaller, 32mm MDPE pipe through the old apparatus, which avoided expensive and disruptive trench digging.

During the course of this work it was established that the leak was under the track which runs beside the tennis courts. There was some increase in greenery of the vegetation at the surface, but nothing striking. Malcolm explained that the water easily runs away and disperses through the alluvial gravel which lies beneath the soil here.

Here’s a plan of our installation as it stands, which shows the general location of its main features:

Note: mobile device users may need to download the file to view it.

Here are some pictures showing the replacement method:

We extend our sincere thanks to Rhodri Edwards, Technical Manager, Parks for overseeing this work, to its Project Manager Mark Davies, and to Malcolm Thomas and his staff for their professional work and for their genial presence on the site, but especially to our own group of volunteers for their turning off the water at night until these repairs could be done.

PPA Website Team