Dear Editor
No one likes to be confronted with a 300% price hike, which I note as you turn your guns on CEC's proposal to increase the rental on allotments (Issue 235).
I have had the pleasure of being an allotment holder in Warriston for more than 15 years and I, like many others, have wondered at the largesse of the Council for the rock bottom price of the allotment, and the gradual increase of services from rubbish clearance to toilets on the site.
Having an allotment is a hobby. After the proposed price rise the full price of a half-plot would be £155, less than a pint of beer a week. No doubt there are one or two allotment holders for whom the price rise would be too much but, in my experience, the vast majority are in employment or sturdy pensioners, like myself, and quite able to afford the new prices.
Many allotments are still full-size and a holder could halve the expense by switching to a smaller plot, which would also give someone else on the long waiting list a chance.
It is not fair to ask the Council Tax payers of Edinburgh to continue to subsidise a few fortunate allotment holders when so many other amenities, like the park at Scotland Yard which is used by hundreds every day, are crying out for additional expenditure.
Yours sincerely
Hugh Lockhart
(London Street)
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@theSpurtle Hooray for 'sturdy pensioners'! Well said, Mr Lockhart!
@theSpurtle re allotment increase, the extra funds would not be used for allotments which already self funded. #allotments
New Town Flâneur @NewTownFlaneur
@theSpurtle Your New Town correspondent seems rather blasé about fate of those '1 or 2' individuals for whom the rise would be unaffordable.
@theSpurtle your correspondent suggests that the council currently subsidises allotment holders. This is not true. http://greenerleith.org.uk/blog/council-forgets-point-allotments-huge-fee-hike-plan-4381 …
@greenerleith @theSpurtle it also suggests we could pay per week, but we are invoiced annually. Many would find £300 difficult in 1 payment.
@NewTownFlaneur @theSpurtle Frankly I'm surprised that CEC isn't trying to hawk the land off to put a coffee bar and a helter skelter on
New Town Flâneur @NewTownFlaneur
@NTCleanStreets @theSpurtle CEC completely ignores the one place truly crying out to be transformed into a funfair: Drummond Place Garden.
NewTownCleanStreets @NTCleanStreets
Allotments = middle class perk par excellence, like free museums. Surely you're AGAINST Margot + Jerry, @NewTownFlaneur?? @theSpurtle
New Town Flâneur @NewTownFlaneur
@NTCleanStreets @theSpurtle Well, precise socio-econ. background of Edinburgh allotments holders unknown to me, but surely not all m/class?
@NTCleanStreets @theSpurtle However, if we do want to see 100% bourgeois stranglehold on allotments, price rises will help bring it about.
@NewTownFlaneur @NTCleanStreets @theSpurtle Definitely not, but it certainly will become a middle class hobby if this increase goes ahead.
@theSpurtle Not everyone's as financially & socially fortunate as your correspondent. Allotments give some isolated elderly folk a community