24 Dec - Christmas Eve & Poultry Problems

This is my last quick post before I finish with my final review of the year. December has had some very varied weather so far; we've had very cold mornings with ice and heavy frosts then, as today, very mild days with temperatures reaching a 13 degrees.

Unfortunately the temperature forecast for tomorrow is warm too, which is a bit of a shame. It was warm last year on Christmas Day too. Somehow it's better to have a nice heavy frost like we had a few years a go. There's nothing like throwing back the curtains to a chilly morning that requires the lighting of the wood burner. (Pic - one of December's morning frosts - alas not over Christmas).

As to the 'poultry problems' in the title, these are quite serious. Like all poultry keepers both backyard and industrial, we were informed on Dec 6th that all birds must be caged up, kept inside or, at least separated from the wild bird population because of the risk of a virulent form of 'bird flu' that is sweeping across northern Europe. To date there have been two reports of birds with the disease, one in east Anglia and the other in west Wales - opposite ends of the country. 

The next DEFRA review date is January 6th 2017, however, because of the two cases so far, I have a horrible feeling that the caging of hens will continue. All the birds at the allotment seem pretty unhappy about things as they are all used to a decent amount of free-ranging. Being locked up is making them miserable I've no doubt. Still, it could be worse, this could have occurred in the middle of summer rather than the wet and cold Winter with limited daylight.

Finally for this post a word about the Christmas provisions. I've just been to the allotment to pick some kale, Brussels sprouts, dig a parsnip and retrieve a large Winter squash. Still in store I have Crown Prince, Butternut and Turks Turban squashes, onions and two large sacks of Sarpo Mira main crop potatoes. In the freezer is a massive bag of sweet corn along with some broad beans and runner beans. Still growing on the plot alongside the kale, sprouts and parsnips are leeks and Winter cabbage. Needless to say, back at the house are bottles of rhubarb, gooseberry and plum wines. So, it's not quite a 'bleak mid-Winter' after all.

Here's wishing you all a very Merry Christmas.

01 Dec - Council Cuts For Allotment Sites

In many ways I suppose it was inevitable that my local council, Torfaen, would begin to reduce its financial support for allotment gardening. The major surprise however, was that it has decided to reduce its grant to ZERO. Furthermore, I attended a meeting this year with a senior council officer who said that he had been informed that allotment sites were 'cash rich', which, when you read on, is laughable. Nevertheless, if council officers are beginning to consider allotment sites as cash cows, it might not be long before there is a reversal in monetary flow; i.e grants to sites might become charges for use instead; charges above and beyond those to maintain the sites and pay associated costs.

I need to backtrack a bit here. Like many councils, Torfaen County Borough Council (TCBC) decided to hand over responsibility for all the sites in Torfaen to two allotment associations covering the north and south of the county. My southern association is therefore responsible for around 16 sites around the Cwmbran area. I believe, from the meeting minutes I've seen, that TCBC gives the southern association a paltry £4800 and also pay £2000 towards water rates (it has been suggested that TCBC might still pay costs toward the water though this doesn't meet the current bill as it stands anyway).

It's been pretty clear for a while that the north & south county associations are already hard pressed to provide support to all the sites they are supposed to be responsible for. Some sites have received a lot of attention such as tree work, boundary fences, communal areas, water catchment systems and even solar panels. My site though has received, in the ten years I have been there, nothing. Not a thing. No help from the association whatsoever. Not even a trowel.

We pay our rents to the TCBC approved association and, until recently, were left with less than £10 in the kitty annually. Yep, ten quid if we were lucky. About three years ago we formed our own site association and started to apply to the local community council for a small grant. Thankfully they have been very kind and we now actually have a enough money to repair and replace tools for the first time.

I don't want to be too critical of the TCBC sanctioned associations as they have a lot of sites to support with very little budget. However, the rents have gone up by a third this year already and there's very little prospect of there being a fair spread of resources across dependant sites. It begs the question, why are we paying our rents to this TCBC association at all? What are were getting apart from community insurance? 

Now, added to this pot, let me stir in the withdrawal of all grant support from TCBC to these two council sponsored associations from 2018. Immediately there is talk about higher rental fees to make up the difference in the overarching association coffers. So, as a site, we will have to pay far higher fees than we are now with little prospect of return and, as I've mentioned, it wouldn't surprise me that allotment members will be viewed as a 'revenue stream' in the future.

Councils always offer the same arguments, 'we need to maintain services for education and care for the elderly' knowing that we all sigh and say 'yeah, I suppose'. Yet these arguments are beginning to leave a sour taste in the mouth when my local council now wants to close the highly rated local school 6th form and hand responsibility over to a local college with poorer academic results and, the elderly are cared for by profit making care companies whose workers are on minimum wage and have no time to do a good job however willing they might be.

Allotments are a small thing in the great scheme of things but they are an example of a very simple but effective way of ticking so many positive boxes: healthy eating, environment, cross generational cooperation, helping with loneliness, preserving green spaces in urban areas, etc. Then there other cuts too: adult education classes, libraries, community centres, bin collections, and so it goes on. The cuts keep coming, services are being trimmed to such an extent that the bed quilt has become a face flannel - it has lost it's original purpose and function.