Winter Fair

We'll be having a fundraising stall at the Winter Fair on Saturday 4th December at the Assembly Rooms above the Town Hall. Mince pies, chutneys and Christmas decorations for sale. See you there!

Good news everyone!

At the recent full Town Council meeting the proposed Golfa site was REJECTED!! We feel that this was the right decision. Welshpool Allotment Association are now looking forward to working with the Town Council and Powys County Council in securing a suitable site.

Welshpool Town Council propose allotment site.

As recently published in The County Times, the Town Council propose that the site offered by Golfa Farm should be the site for allotments in Welshpool. The landowner requires a rent of £2/sqm. The national average for allotments is 13p - 35p/sqm. The Town Council will subsidise this at £1.50/sqm with allotment holders paying 50p/sqm. Welshpool Allotment Association consider that this is hugely expensive to the allotment holder and the tax payer, with the only winner to be the landowner. The maximum size of a plot will be 120m, only half of a full sized plot as stated in the Allotment Act. Therefore the Town Council will not be fulfilling this legal requirement. The size of an allotment is legally around 250sqm which is big enough to grow food to support a family of four. The Town Council are not providing this.

Welshpool Allotment Association have turned down this site as it is not a suitable for numerous reasons besides the expense. It is over a mile out of town along a busy main road. The only way to access the site would be by car, which is unacceptable to us as its hardly the 'green' approach and many people do not have a car available to them. The site has an 'agricultural' access point onto the busy trunk road. Not ideal to pull out onto. The land is also only available for 11 months of the year which is unacceptable to WAA.

We have informed our members prior to the Town Council proposing this site, that if they want to take up a plot at this site then they can approach the landowner independently.

Regretfully Welshpool Town Council will not pursue any other sites within the town. This is unacceptable to Welshpool Allotment Association as there are other sites to consider and there is still the Burgess Land!! It's a shame the Town Council are not embracing the idea of a suitable well organised allotment site within the town as it could be such an asset, with a wide range of people and community groups using it, working together. An ideal opportunity to restore 'Pride in Welshpool'. They really are missing a trick here.

If you have any thoughts on this matter then please post a comment.

AGM

There will be an AGM of the Welshpool Allotment Association on Wednesday 14th July 2010 at 7pm in the Corn Exchange at the Town Hall, Broad Street, Welshpool. Please do try and attend if you are at all interested in allotment provision in Welshpool. During the meeting you will hear from the Chair about all the details of the story so far and the hard work that's been going on to try and secure suitable land. There will also be an election of a new Committee. To round the evening off Mr Richard Northridge from Cwm Harry Land Trust will be giving a talk.

There will also be a plant sale to raise funds for the Association so please bring any spare plants you may have and lots of change to purchase some more!

See you there!

Support our campaign!

We will be participating in the parade at Welshpool Carnival on Monday 31st May. If you are on the waiting list for an allotment then please join us at The Quarry Garage, Brook Street, Welshpool at 12.30pm.

Leaflets will be distributed throughout the day. Please show your support of our campaign to secure an allotment site by displaying a leaflet in your house/car/shop window. Thank you!

The story so far...

This all begins in 2007 when Jennie identified a lack of local provision for allotments in Welshpool. By law if more than 6 people require an allotment then the Town Council should provide the townspeople with an allotment site. The need was indeed greater than 6 residents as the list now stands at over 60! Welshpool Town Council began the process of looking for suitable land but soon realised it was not going to be easy and probably wish that the growing trend and need for people to be able to grow their own food would disappear! The Welshpool Allotment Association was formed in 2009 to formalise the process of looking for land and the committee members have taken on the role of pouring over maps and talking to landowners to seek some land. Many growing seasons have passed by during this quest as for reasons ranging from housing development, past tipping, access, price and even newts have plagued the committee from securing the land needed.

The committee are now urging Welshpool Town Council to take a more proactive role in meeting the need of the residents to have an allotment site. Welshpool Town Councillors are Trustees of the Burgess Lands which is 90 acres of agricultural land left to the town for the benefit of its residents. Perfect for growing some vegetables on, one would think...