Bob Hobden wrote:
"Ian B" wrote ...

My sympathies to the PtePike, this must be very upsetting indeed.
But this is what you get from communist central planning. Once
somebody is "alotting" you anything, it's not yours, it's somebody
else's. You just have permission to use it, and it can be taken away
at any time as we see here.

If the State didn't "give away" "free" allotments, there would no
doubt be some market for similar small plots of cultivable land from
private rentiers, or for purchase. Then people would have a proper
rental agreement, and stuff like this couldn't happen. But "free"
(that is, paid for by other people) always drives out good, sadly.

Free, FREE! What are you talking about? We pay £9.50 a sq Rod p.a
here, that's £95.00 p.a for a normal allotment.
Because money changes hand we do have "proper" rental agreements and
the original poster needs to look at theirs and see how the Council
are supposed to deal with uncultivated/untidy plots, normally they
have to give a warning first and then a re-inspection at a later
date. No warning appears to have been given in this case so the
poster has a very good case for causing trouble for an idiot of a
jobsworth employed by the Council and getting some form of
compensation. If it's not in the rental agreement then either ask the
allotment rep
on your site or phone the Council and ask what the "laid down"
procedure is.

Apologies; thinking in economic terms as I was, "free" and "subsidised" are
the same thing; that is the State is transferring value from one place to
another. But yes, I should have been more exact.

The point stands regardless, this is land "alloted", hence the name, by the
State; that's why there's a waiting list and council bureaucrats etc to deal
with; as with any other state provision, you get what you're given, or can
beg, cajole, etc, out of those bureaucrats. That's why people sometimes post
here thrilled that the Council has finally allotted them an allotment of
land. Remember when you had to wait a year and a half to get a telephone?
Same thing.

I answered this politically because it's a political issue; events like the
one described occur because of the nature of the (State) beast. Otherwise
it's like complaining about the NHS but considering discussion of its
nationalised nature too political.

Anyway, as I said PtePike has all my sympathy. It must indeed have been an
utterly heartbreaking sight.


Ian