Child’s Hill Allotment Society
April 2011 emails from CHAS committee
Barnet allotment holders mount legal challenge to rent increases
Allotment holders in Barnet have started a legal challenge to the rent increases agreed by Barnet Council.
In February, Barnet’s Cabinet agreed to increase the rent for a standard (250sq m) plot from £59 per year to £170 for Barnet residents and £340 for non-residents. Allotment holders had lobbied hard against the increases and submitted a petition but the Council went ahead with its decision.
Allotment holders say that the increases are unjustified and unjustifiable: the Council failed to consult about the proposed increases; it presented no evidence that the increases were needed e.g. to cover costs; it did not base the increases on proper criteria or legislation; and it failed to justify why allotment holders living outside the borough should pay twice as much as Barnet residents.
The Council has said that the rent increases would only apply to allotment sites which stayed in Council management after April 2012: allotment holders themselves would have the opportunity to take over the management of their sites before then and could set their own rents. Allotment holders believe however that the huge rent increases – far more than for other recreational facilities in Barnet – are designed to induce allotment holders to go for self-management regardless of the terms of any deal yet to be put forward by the Council.
Commenting on the challenge, Richard King, the secretary of the Barnet Federation of Allotment and Horticultural Societies said, “We told the Council right from the start that these rent increases were unjustified and unjustifiable. But they took no notice. To increase allotment rents by such huge amounts when other charges for recreational facilities are only going up in line with inflation is completely unreasonable. And to do it in this way - to try and force us agree to manage our own sites when discussions about this have hardly started and there aren’t even proposals on the table - is unfair.”
Notes
1. The rent increases were agreed by Barnet’s Cabinet on 14th February 2011 and are due to be implemented from April 2012. Notices of the increase have been sent to the allotment holders concerned.
2. The legal challenge has the support of allotment societies in Barnet. The individual claimants who are bringing the challenge however do not wish to have their names publicised and will not be making any public comment.
3. The Council agreed last November to a new policy under which the various allotment associations in Barnet would take over full management of their sites. At present, the Council is responsible for some or all of the maintenance of the sites. Under the new policy, allotment societies would take responsibility for all this work and would set the allotment rents they felt were needed for their site. Nearly all allotment societies have been prepared to take on this responsibility (and many are keen to do so) provided the terms and conditions are right. The Council held an initial workshop for allotment societies in January 2011 but detailed discussions about self management have yet to start.
4. Enquiries about this note should be directed to Richard King - tel: 020 8444 5035 or email: richardking101@aol.com
CHAS Committee
(email dated 13/04/2011)
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Legal Challenge to Rent Increases
In recent weeks, the Barnet Federation of Allotment and Horticultural Societies, with the assistance of a number of lawyers who are also Barnet allotment plotholders has consulted with a barrister to determine whether there are good legal grounds for challenging the decision by Barnet Council to increase rents to £17 or £34 per pole in 2012. The barrister's opinion is that there are, so, on April 14th, solicitors acting for the Federation wrote the council to notify them that a legal challenge is to be mounted.
At the same time, a press release was sent to local papers in Barnet and its surrounding boroughs, so articles about the legal action should appear in the Hendon Times, the Ham and High, the Camden New Journal and others in the next week.
The reasons for the challenge, include the following
- The Council misdirected itself in law in failing to consider the relevant Act in determining the proposed rents for allotment.
- The report was based on a misunderstanding of an established and relevant fact, namely that all allotment holders were currently paying £5.80 per pole (rather than the figures of £6.00 and £11.00 to which reference was made).
- There was no adequate material to justify the proposed rents for either allotment holders who (a) adopt the Big Society management model or (b) rent their allotments under the current arrangements.
- The proposed increase of rents of 193% and 486% called out for a rational explanation. No such material was provided.
- The only material relating to the “cost of the service” was that considered by the Cabinet on 29 November 2010. This material provided no rational justification for the proposed increases.
- No rational explanation was provided as to why the rent that a non-resident might reasonably be expected to pay was twice the rent that a resident might be expected to pay.
The council is therefore asked to:
- Withdraw their decision to increase charges for allotment holders for 2011/12 ;
- To consult allotment holders before requiring them to pay any increased charges;
- To provide information which is both accurate and sufficient to enable the allotment holders to make an informed response to the above consultation.
The deadline for the council to respond to this "letter before action" is 4pm on April 27th.
If there is no satisfactory response, the next stage will be to decide whether to apply to the courts for permission to seek judicial review of the council's decision, on the basis that the council misdirected itself in law, that there has been a procedural impropriety and that the decision is irrational.
We shall continue to keep you informed as the situation develops.
CHAS Committee
(email dated 16/04/2011)
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Progress towards self-management
There has at last been some progress in the negotiations with Barnet over self-management of the allotment site. You might recall that in January Barnet convened a workshop to which all the allotment societies in the borough were invited. Somewhat to the council's surprise almost all those present said that they wished to be represented in negotiations by the Barnet Federation of Allotment and Horticultural Societies. Subsequently, Barnet wrote to all societies to ask whether they wished to take part in fast-track negotiations, or to be represented by the Federation in negotiations which would take place at a later date.
In the event, only four of the smaller sites opted for the fast-track. Barnet therefore invited a number of other sites to join these four in a meeting that was held last week on April 20th - a full three months after the original workshop. Among these sites was East Finchley, whose secretary happens also to be secretary of the Federation. This would seem to be a face-saving measure which recognised that meaningful negotiations could only take place with the involvement of the Federation, if the stated aim of introducing self management borough wide by April 1 2012 is to be realised.
The council team gave the impression that they now wish to do all they can to make progress and to do the business in the way that the societies think best. One can speculate that they have been galvanised by the threat of legal action over the proposed rent increases since, if the deadline is achieved, it will be the societies that set the rents for April 2012, not the council.
A major surprise was that the council has discovered that it can, after all, issue leases to allotment societies under an existing local government act - previously it had maintained that it did not have the powers. This means that it ought to be possible to negotiate essentially the same sort of deal for all the sites, something that should speed up negotiations since it will greatly simplify the process of implementing self-management. The leases would be of at least 7 years duration, and a peppercorn rent (ie almost nothing) would be payable by the societies to the council.
There remains much detail to be discussed and negotiated, and the next workshop is to be held in four weeks time. At that point, it should be clear as to whether the likely outcome will be an arrangement which all the sites and societies can accept. It should also become clear as to whether we shall need to make any changes to our constitution to ensure that CHAS is sufficiently robustly organised to take on self-management.
We shall report progress as and when it happens. Meanwhile, if you have any questions or comments, please let us have them.
CHAS Committee
(email dated 23/04/2011)
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Barnet has backed down
We received this message this morning from Richard King, the secretary of the Federation of Barnet Allotment and Horticultural Societies.
To all Federation members
Barnet Council have backed down over the allotment rent increases proposed for April 2012.
The legal challenge over the rent increases was recently fine-tuned to strengthen the case that the Council had behaved irrationally and illegally in taking the decision on allotment rents last February. Allotment holders said that the Council based their decision on the wrong legislation; that there was no evidence available to prove that the rent increase was necessary to cover the cost of providing the allotment service; and that charging non-residents twice the rent of Barnet residents was unlawful.
In addition, the notices of the rent increase which were sent to self-collect and direct let plot holders in early April were delivered several days too late: the tenancy agreement requires that 12 months notice is given of any rent increase.
In the face of this challenge, the Council have said that they will not now be implementing the decision taken last February to increase the rents from April 2012 and that the rent notices sent out at the beginning of April are invalid.The Council will take a fresh decision in September about the level of allotment rents for those sites remaining in Council management in future: we believe that rents could not now be increased until April 2013.
Allotment sites which opt for self-management will be able to set their own rents and the Council have said that self-management is their top priority for the allotments at the moment.
The threat of court proceedings against the Council has therefore been dropped - they gave us what we wanted without the need for court action.
Please pass this news to your allotment holders.
Our legal team did a great job and we are very grateful to them.
With best wishes
Richard King
We would like to add our thanks to the legal team and to Richard King. Also to those of you who donated or pledged donations to the fighting fund; this is no longer needed, so we shall refund your donations if you requested this.
The federation and the allotment societies can now devote their efforts to negotiating a satisfactory self-management deal with Barnet.
CHAS Committee
(email dated 26/04/2011)
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