Allotment Tenancy Agreement (your responsibilities)

Find out about your responsibilities as an allotment holder and how we inspect this.

Allotment Tenancy Agreement

Once you have had an offer of an allotment and visited the site with the Allotments Officer to view the plot, you must sign the Allotment Tenancy Agreement and send it back to us.

Once we have a signed copy we will send you the key to the site.

Your main responsibilities are:

• Pay a yearly invoice (within 40 days of getting the bill)
• Keep the plot reasonably free of weeds.
• Cultivate at least 25% of the plot within the first three months, and the whole plot within one year
• Maintain surrounding boundaries and pathways to the plot
• Keep the plot free from rubbish and unused items
• Store any items that are brought onto the allotment neatly
• Apply for permission before adding a  shed, greenhouse, polytunnel or planting fruit trees
• Only light bonfires after getting agreement from us and follow our guidelines on domestic bonfires
• Apply for permission to keep hens and keep rabbits on the allotment and follow our guidelines on keeping hens and guidelines on keeping rabbits.

Inspections

We regularly inspect our sites and plots. This is to make sure that the rules set out in the agreement are being kept.

We must do this to benefit the current tenants, people on the waiting list, the surrounding community and the local environment. We also inspect to make sure fences, gates and water are maintained.

If we find the rules are being broken we will start the enforcement process. The first step is to send a notice. You then have 28 days to fix the problem, if this is done you can continue to rent the allotment.