Dig deep - allotment pirates plan raid on your plot!

Allotment holders in Boston may soon be hoping to unearth buried treasure along with the tates to help them continue their pastime - if huge rental price rises before Boston Borough Council are approved.
A report to tomorrow’s Environment and Performance Committee seeks comments on ramping up allotment charges over four years by a staggering 465.22% overall -  starting with a 117.4% increase in 2013, followed by annual rises of 54%, 35% and 25% .
Current annual allotment rents are £23 per year for 300 square yards and £46 per year for 600 square yards.
The report says the allotments service cannot be immune from current financial constraints, and there is room to eliminate or significantly reduce the present level of subsidy.
To recover all costs, rents would rise from £46 to £260 for 600 square yards and £23 to £130 for 300 square  yards - which, the report cleverly concludes, “represent a very substantial percentage increase” – which is why it is recommended that, if adopted, they are phased in.
Ironically, the proposals come at a time of an upsurge in demand for allotments. It’s reckoned that there could be up to 100,000 people on national waiting lists – and in Boston there is already a long queue of people wanting plots.
The benefit is not just cheap produce - there is growing evidence that digging-it-yourself produces significant personal health benefits - said to be greater than exercising in the gym.
Yet our health-obsessed council –  the one which blew a fortune on a barely-used non-smoking centre in the laughable "community hub" –  ignores the fact that increases like this will almost certainly drive people away.
Or perhaps that's the idea.
Even more ironic is a suggestion in the report that part of the former Broadfield Lane allotment site could revert to its former use. Readers will recall that allotment holders were evicted some years ago when a greedy local charity wanted to sell the site for development - a plan which subsequently foundered.  The land has lain fallow ever since, but has now been sold, and we are sure that development plans will soon be on the way.
The proposed allotment rent increases will make £35,750 and cover all costs ... with a slight surplus by 2017/18.  The report says that the extra income will contribute to the council’s savings target.
Concessions have been ruled out as they would create more administration and expense - and mean a large drop in income if groups such as pensioners were included ...  because the reduction would have to be clawed back from the other tenants.
At present, there are six allotment sites in the borough totalling 352 plots - and 53 people on the waiting list.
The report recommends that community ownership is strongly encouraged to establish independent associations to self-manage sites and set their own rents, which would, of course, let the council off the hook altogether.
This is “sexed-up” up in the sentence: “Increasing rents would mean that the burden on the council taxpayer will diminish and there will be a greater incentive for sites to transfer to self-management allowing tenants to manage their own affairs and set their own rents.”
So it’s for our own good after all.
What philanthropy!
However, there is a history of reluctance among many allotment sites to go independent.
The only example provided is where tenants at the Wyberton Low Road site agreed by a majority of 56% on a 51% turnout -  that's just 28% in real terms - to opt for association ... and then only because an incentive of three years’ free rent  was offered, followed by charges linked to agricultural rent values.
It’s not as though staffing the allotments service support is high.  It take slightly more than half a full-time post.
Contrast that with the recent decision to curb the Mayor’s budget by 18% against the 30% recommended – for an office which currently employs two officers each working 15 hours a week and 50% of the time of a Civic and Member Services Officer - and it is not difficult to see whose interests are closer to the council’s heart – assuming that it has one!

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