Author: Scott Ramsay

Potato Day Shop open

Orders have already been rolling in, so grab your seed potatoes, your fruit & veg seeds, your onions, shallots and garlic, and your compost and planter bags while they last!

Everything we sell is at close-to-wholesale prices, and any small surplus goes right back into GAF grants that you can apply for as Allotment Development Awards or New Plotholder Awards later in the year.

Ordering and Collecting

  1. Place your order
  2. Pay online
  3. Check your email for confirmation
  4. Use the link in the email to book a pickup slot
  5. Come to the Sir John Stirling Maxwell Allotments in Pollok Park (don’t get it confused with Southwestern Allotments, which is visible from the main road by the playing fields – SJSM isn’t!)
  6. Plant your crop!
Questions? Contact us here
Potatoes

Potatoes

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Compost

Compost

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Sundries

Sundries

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Veg & Flower Seeds

Veg & Flower Seeds

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Shallots, Garlic & Onions

Shallots, Garlic & Onions

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Raising the Rents

Raising the Rents

Last week (17 Feb), Glasgow City Council approved a proposal to raise the rent for a full size allotment plot from £35 a year to £114 a year. A more than 200% rise in one year! 

Glasgow Allotments Forum will be holding a public meeting to discuss responses to this decision and on-going developments with regard to allotment regulations in the very near future, so please watch this space.

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Invitation to Discuss New Council Proposals for Your Allotments – 12th January @ 7pm

As mentioned earlier in December, Glasgow City Council is proposing to put forward new draft rules and regulations for allotment sites and a first draft scheme of delegation of management to site Associations in January.

A short  window of two weeks for consultation with allotments (full timeline at the bottom of the page).

It’s crucial that each council allotment site in Glasgow gets a chance to be heard, and it’s up to all of us to make sure it happens.

GAF therefore invites you to a discussion on 12th January at 7pm in the city centre to:

  • find out the background to these proposals
  • hear about the work GAF members (i.e. other interested plotholders like you) have been doing on this topic over the past couple of years
  • think about how you might respond to the consultation from the perspective of your own site

Let us know you’re coming:

Register on Eventbrite
  • We aim to help associations to prepare for the consultation on new regulations for allotments in Glasgow – in particular:
  1. To clarify what is at stake in the consultation process
  2. To identify what the current difficulties are in relation to site management.
  3. To think about how new rules could improve the effectiveness of site management in future.

What’s happening to my site?

Whilst Allotment Associations have been managing their sites for many years now, there is no documentation that spells out for council site members and their committees exactly what management functions they are personally responsible for, and what management functions are retained by Glasgow City Council.

Under the terms of the new Community Empowerment Act (2015), this relationship needs to be formalised as a written agreement between each Association and the Council.

Glasgow City Council is obliged under Section 123 of the Community Empowerment Act (2015) to:

  1. Respond to a written request for delegation from each allotment association.
  2. Agree with the association what the terms of delegation are.
  3. Make the agreed arrangements with associations transparent and open to scrutiny.

We are now, in 2023, at the point where we are being consulted on the issue of delegation of management.

Our previous work raised a number of issues that need to be addressed in this process:

  1. The need to sort out the legal position in a way that is clear and unequivocal with regard to the current overlap of association membership with the entitlement to plot tenancy.
  2. The requirement of a clear statement of those functions which are being retained by the local authority as well as those that are being delegated to associations  – including issues such as boundary maintenance.
  3. The need to reach an agreement on the disciplinary procedures that are to be practised across all the Glasgow allotment sites for both cultivation and behavioural issues.
  4. Clarification of financial delegation i.e. the collection of rents and signed missives, and the link between rental fees and services.

When is it happening?

Our discussion was scheduled for a few days after the planned release of the Council’s draft scheme of delegation.

The timetable we were given by Glasgow City Council was originally:

  • Drafting documents will be completed by January 7th
  • Associations will have until January 21st to consider these drafts.
  • Re-drafts will then go out for public consultation from January 28th until March 11th
  • Final versions of the rules and regulations and the scheme of delegation will be published on March 25th.

Update: As of the 11th January we are awaiting the release of the council’s draft documents, and we will update the timeline above after this event on 12th January, at which a council representative will be present.

What should I do?

Come along to the discussion, then use the Council’s consultation time to respond with others on behalf of your allotment site (before 21st Jan) or as an individual member of the public (on redrafted documents from 28th Jan to 11th March).

Optional background reading

A working group of GAF members have already drawn up a draft framework for a scheme of delegation (and a draft set of rules and regulations for a modern allotment site) which was circulated to our members for comment and amendment in 2021.

GAF documents

Draft GAF (not council) Scheme of Delegation Template 18th Oct 2021 (.docx)Download
Draft GAF (not council) Constitutions & Rules Template 18th Oct 2021 (.docx)Download

Council / government documents

The Community Empowerment Act (2015) at legislation.gov

  • see Part 9 (Allotments) Section 123 (Delegation of management of allotment sites)

Guidance for Local Authorities on interpreting the Community Empowerment Act (2015)

  • written in plain, non-legal English
  • gives advice on how to split the responsibility of managing allotment sites between the Council and each Association’s own members / committees
  • see page 24, which covers Section 123 of the Act (mentioned above)
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Funding opportunities update

silver and brown round coins

Glasgow City Council’s food growing team occasionally issue summaries of funding opportunities available to the public. The following is the latest list:

UK Government: Community Ownership Fund – apply by 14th December

Capital grants of up to £250,000 and revenue grants up to £50,000 are available for UK community organisations to take on the sustainable ownership of community assets that are at risk of being lost to a local area.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/community-ownership-fund-prospectus

Glasgow City Council: Area Partnership Grants – from 6th January

Grants up to £10,000 are available for community and voluntary organisations for locally identified needs and investment priorities within each Partnership boundary. Amounts and application deadlines vary. 

Research your own area from 6 January

National Lottery Community Fund: Young Start – apply any time

Grants up to £100,000 are available for community groups and voluntary organisations to help children and young people become more confident and realise their potential.

https://www.tnlcommunityfund.org.uk/funding/programmes/young-start

Bank of Scotland Foundation Reach programme – apply by 10th January

Charities which can demonstrate they address disadvantage or social exclusion and will reach the most vulnerable people across Scotland, to provide them with opportunity and equality and making positive, sustainable change can apply. For disadvantage, examples include charities addressing primary disadvantage such as homelessness, abuse, mental health or poverty, or secondary disadvantage such as debt issues, learning disabilities, illiteracy, lack of employability skills or health issues. For social exclusion, examples include charities addressing exclusionary challenges for minorities, people with disabilities, LGBT people, drug users, institutional care leavers, the elderly or the young.

https://bankofscotlandfoundation.org/funding-programmes/reach

7stars Foundation – apply by 31st December

Grants of up to £2,500 are available to charitable organisations supporting challenged and vulnerable young people under the age of 16 in the UK. The 7stars Foundation will provide funding for projects which support young living in areas of deprivation and socioeconomic disadvantage who are challenged by abuse or addiction, who are young carers, or who are homeless. Projects should address a lack of provision and provide immediate support.

https://the7starsfoundation.co.uk/apply/project-funding-application

Greenpeace Take Action Bad Taste – apply by 15th January

Grants of up to £10,000 are available to UK-based artists & activists to use art and creative actions to highlight the role of the UK’s industrial food system in the climate crisis and to create change within places of public, political and corporate power. In recognition of inequities built into the industrial food system, the project will prioritise the perspectives of those who self-identify as Black, Indigenous, people of colour and/or working class.

https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/take-action/bad-taste/

Naturesave Trust – opens on 1st January until 28th February

The theme for this funding round will be tackling pollution and single-use plastic. The Trust will be looking for community projects who are running initiatives to tackle these issues. In previous funding rounds the Trust has awarded grants of between £500 to £2,500.

https://www.naturesave.co.uk/naturesave-trust/

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Timetable for publication of new rules for Glasgow City Council allotments

agreement blur business close up

Glasgow City Council is proposing to put forward new draft rules and regulations for allotment sites and a first draft scheme of delegation of management to site Associations early in the New Year.

The timetable we have been given is:

  • Drafting documents will be completed by January 7th
  • Associations will have until January 21st to consider these drafts.
  • Re-drafts will then go out for public consultation from January 28th until March 11th
  • Final versions of the rules and regulations and the scheme of delegation will be published on March 25th.

Your rents, services, obligations, legal status and future development are all up for discussion and alteration as part of this process.

GAF will be organising opportunities for briefings and discussions about this process. It is very important that you get involved.

Next steps

  • Check that you’re on our mailing list – let us know if you’re not, and we’ll add you
  • Let other plotholders at your site know they can do the same
  • Our mailling list only has ~150 of you who have let us know you’d like to receive emails. We therefore mainly try to reach plotholders in Glasgow via Committee Secretaries.
    • If you’re a Secretary, please do pass on this news to your members.
    • If you’re a plotholder and your Secretary / Committee don’t often forward GAF messages, please let them know you’d be interested to have this information forwarded on / posted on your site notice board, etc.
    • Help us check whether we have up-to-date contact details the most recent version of your Committee at our list of allotment sites – click the map to see details we have for each site.
  • Join our Facebook Group – we’ll also post updates there.
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