Issue - meetings

Cabinet received a report from the Cabinet Member for Culture and Sport on the proposal to further enhance the Council’s commitment to allotment provision within the Borough by adopting a policy of formally declaring all Council-owned land that is used as an allotment as Statutory Allotment Land.

It was noted that the Council’s Local Development Framework already provided protection for the Borough’s allotment sites but a statutory designation had the added benefit of requiring the Secretary of State’s approval for consent in the future to sell or change the use of any such site and to provide a replacement site.

In response to an enquiry, the Divisional Director of Culture and Sport advised that a number of sites that had previously been closed had been brought back into use and that progress was being made to bring a consistent range and standard of facilities at all sites.

Cabinet agreed:

(i)  That for the purposes of providing persons resident in the borough with small plots of land for cultivation, the 23 allotment sites identified in the plan tabled at the meeting be appropriated for the purposes of statutory allotment under the Allotment Acts 1908-1950 and that the Secretary of State be so advised; and

(ii)  A new Council policy to register with the Secretary of State all allotment land in the borough.