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Funding Opportunities
BDAC would appreciate hearing from any site that has successfully received funding from an outside agency.
One such site is Chester Road who recently obtained funding for a summerhouse to be shared by the 6 plotholders. The funding having come from Birmingham Airport Community Trust.
Here is a list of other possible sources, originally supplied by Birmingham Open Spaces Forum (BOSF)
The Edward and Dorothy Cadbury Trust Funding is available for charitable organisations in the West Midlands working in the areas of social welfare, music, nature, education and training combined with the Quaker values of simplicity, equality, justice, peace and care of the environment.
Grants are available of between £1,000 and £5,000.
Applications can be submitted at any time. Click here for more info!
Severn Trent Community Fund
Voluntary or community organisations in the Severn Trent Water region (West Midlands are eligible) can apply to the £10 million Severn Trent Community Fund for funding to increase community wellbeing.
This includes support for projects that help people to lead a healthier life and gain new skills; help to create better places to live in and use; and projects that will help look after the natural environment, give people greater access to that environment or help look after water.
Applications can be submitted at any time. Click here for more info!
The Matthew Good Foundation – Grants for Good (UK)
The Matthew Good Foundation’s Grants for Good aims to support small charities, not-for-profit groups and social entrepreneurs who are passionate about making a difference to people, their community or the environment.
The Fund will share £15,000 between five shortlisted projects every three months, which will be voted for by John Good Group employees.
The project that receives the most votes willreceive a grant of £5,000, second place £3,500, third place £2,500 with fourth and fifth place both receiving £2,000. As well as established projects and charities, the Foundation wants to hear from people with innovative ideas that need some funding to get their projects up and running. The closing date for applications is 15th March 2026.
Biffa Award Main Grants Scheme look to award grants to projects that provide or improve biodiversity, nature recovery, community spaces, and places for outdoor recreation.
The type of activities could be to improve community buildings; site-based projects to protect and enhance a species or habitat; improving an open space such as a park, play area or woodland that needs transforming to benefit local people of all ages.
Between £10,000 and £75,000 is available for projects of less than
£200,000. Ten percent of the award needs to be third party sourced.
Applications can be submitted at any time.
Alpkit Foundation trustees review applications every two months, offering small grants (£50-£500) to individuals, community groups, and organisations. They fund projects that encourage outdoor activity, support environmental initiatives, promotewellbeing, and enhance outdoor education.
Applications can be submitted at any time. Click here for more info!
The Birmingham and Black Country Communities Fund has now reopened!
The fund has grants up to £3,000. Applications must meet one of the following aims:
• Promote health and wellbeing
• Tackling disadvantage
• Support local solutions to meet local needs
• Promote community cohesion
• Develop sustainable and supporting communities
Applications can be submitted at any time. Click here for more info!
Forestry Commission – Tree Health Pilot Scheme (West Midlands individuals or groups are eligible).
The Scheme is testing ways to slow the spread of pests and diseases affecting trees – including: larch, spruce, sweet chestnut, oak, and ash affected by various diseases.
The grants cover activities such as woodland management and tree maintenance.
Applications can be submitted at any time. Click here for more info!
The Harry Payne Fund
Area: 25 mile radius of Birmingham City Centre. Grants of up to £2,000. The fund aims to:
• Help those who are disadvantaged
• Helping smaller causes where modest donations can make a difference
Please read the Fund Factsheet and the Essential Information before applying.
The Bernard Sunley Foundation aims to raise the quality of life, particularly for young, disadvantaged and older people. Under the Community Funding strand the Foundation gives grants towards the building or refurbishment of scout huts, community centres, youth clubs, outdoor activity centres, farm and outdoor learning centres, sports centres and pavilions, playinfields and playgrounds.
The Foundation also fund the purchase of new minibuses that assist those most in need in their local communities.
Applications can be submitted at any time. Click here for more info!
The National Lottery has two regular community grant schemes:
• Awards for All: Offers grants between £300 and £20,000 for up to 2 years.
• Reaching Communities: Offer grants from £20,001 for up to 5 years.
Both programmes fund projects or organisations that will do at least one of these things:
• bring people together to build strong relationships in and across communities.
• improve the places and spaces that matter to communities.
• help more people to reach their potential, by supporting them at the earliest possible stage.
Applications can be submitted at any time.
Edgbaston & Northfield NNS Fund for Younger Adults: This fund aims to support projects to help local community groups to deliver projects for vulnerable people aged 18 – 49 with long term disabilities, in the Edgbaston & Northfield area.
Grants are available up to £10,000.
Applications can be submitted at any time. Click here for more info!
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Proposed Rule Changes 2025 A more detailed response
As I expect you are aware, the Allotments Dept of BCC is consulting BDAC members about changes to the current Allotment Rules. In April this year, the Allotments Officer issued for consultation a whole raft of possible changes and additions that they wish to introduce.
We can all agree that a review is long overdue, but without looking at the current site management problems overall – including our difficulties in getting some Rules respected – we’re left wondering what this will achieve on its own.. The BDAC Executive agreed that we should be involved in the consultation, but we have asked the Council to engage with BDAC members on the sites to look at the ‘bigger picture’ AND consider OUR suggestions for a better set of Rules that we – as plotholders and committees trying to manage sites – are prepared to support and promote. .
So we are not just commenting and responding to BCC suggestions.
We are taking legal advice and are told that we should have a new Tenancy Agreement which INCLUDES the Rules. The National Allotment Society has recently updated its Tenancy Agreement template so we can also borrow ideas from this. This includes Rules, some of which are in the main body of the Agreement and some in a Schedule covering different topics so this is what the BDAC proposes to negotiate with the Council at the same time as considering and agreeing any Rule Changes.
In the documents attached you will find both the BCC changes to the current Rules and comments and suggestions for how to respond. Some are not controversial – they are acceptable to most and/or necessary because of legal changes. In other cases, we don’t all agree. Opinion is split as you’ll find if you follow the comments on Facebook and our website (which is currently down at the moment)
There’s a lot to look at so if you’re short of time, please at least take a look at the topics which concern and interest you and just respond to those.
How it’s set out: in each of the attached, you will find in column 1 the proposed BCC Rule changes – and suggestions for alternatives in column 2, OR recommendations for agreeing with the existing Rule or proposed changes. This is an on-going process and more suggestions are very welcome.
The Tables cover various topics and include the Rules which would come under these headings, so they don’t go through the Rules as they are currently numbered and organised (but Rule numbers are given).
Please note that the suggestions in these documents come from various sources such as ideas from associations or individuals who have already responded OR wording from the NAS template for a Tenancy Agreement, AND/OR discussions by the BDAC’s Management of Sites and Associations Working Group (MOSA) on 25th September about 4 of the topics.
The Council is keen to introduce THEIR changes straight after the Half Yearly Meeting of the BDAC on 15th November. We’ve said this is not reasonable given the number of changes and the fact that we have had no meaningful ‘talks’ about any of the other changes we have proposed to the Council about site management. However, we could offer some responses on some Rules if enough of our member organisations are prepared to support particular non-controversial Rule changes.
Currently, our website is out of action for technical reasons, so respond in other ways such as emails to this address (secretary@bdacallotments.co.uk) AND by coming to our Half Yearly Meeting at 2pm on Saturday 15th November, at Bordesley Green Allotments where there will be opportunities to put your comments on each of the topics which will be displayed on the walls and you can also comment during the meeting.
Regards
Hester Blewitt
Secretary BDAC
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BCC Proposed Rule Changes 2025
The Allotment Officer has shared a new proposed allotment rule book with BDAC. We are now seeking feedback from individuals and associations on the proposed changes.
You can download a copy below.
Proposed changes and additions are shown in blue.
To contribute to the discussion please email secretary@bdacallotments.co.uk with the Subject line: Proposed Rule Changes
Prior to being able to canvas opinions BDAC has already made an initial response.
Thank you for sending the proposed revisions to the existing Council Allotment Rules. We understand that you wish to report to a meeting on the 30th with Property and Legal Services and want to include the Rules in the agenda.
First of all, it’s not clear what is the status and remit of this meeting and how much time is allocated to this item. If it is to follow up on our request for 3 areas of management to be looked at, in the context of developing a new Management Agreement to start next year, then it makes sense to look at the Rules in that light – and that applies to BCC as well as BDAC. We did agree to review the Rules when we met you, Val and Simon in February at Kings Heath House, but this cannot be a quick fix because we need to consult with our membership – the Associations, their committees and the tenants AND we/they cannot give informed feedback without having an idea of the following – and these are just examples of how complex the situation is now and could be in future:- If existing rules continue or are revised, what resources, training and back-up will there be for volunteer-run committees to undertake the practical management of sites and enforcement of Rules? If there are no committees (Directly managed sites) or committees/officers are not able to function effectively especially on very small sites, what then?
- Whether some of the old or amended Rules can realistically be enforced – by Association Committees or BCC. Even if there is statutory law and regulations behind some of the Rules, can they be enforced on allotment sites by associations, BCC or BDAC if they are being ignored routinely by the public without any repercussions eg bonfire nuisance, dumping, with few or no prosecutions taking place in the city, let alone on allotment sites.
- Some Rules (old and new) may be controversial – for example, we don’t all share the same views on what are legitimate activities on allotment plots and it may be difficult to get agreement between Associations and tenant members. Is it advisable to create more instances of Rules which some Committees and tenants may not agree with, so encouraging disrespect for Rules and turning a blind eye to non-compliance?
- If we are going to overhaul the Rules, isn’t it better to do a thorough job and not just tinker with individual ones, so we have more chance of ending up with a set of Rules which are as clear and simple as is possible, easy to understand and explain to tenants and other people who come on allotment sites? They need to be general enough to cover the full range of situations which might occur, and specific enough to define what’s included or excluded. The ideal is to avoid the possibility of a Rule being interpreted in a variety of ways by different people. The danger in making changes to try and clarify existing Rules, is that we can end up with ones which people who don’t like them will still ignore and try and get round – if challenged – and that could make the situation worse, for BCC officers, for Associations and the BDAC.
So our overall response is that we do want to review the Rules, in the context of the other matters we wish to progress with BCC, as mentioned above. Bear in mind BDAC is still not yet incorporated and the process is not likely to be finished for a few more months. In view of the complexity of this task, it makes sense if we don’t change the Rules to serve for just a few months, but look at what has got the best chance of working in the future irrespective of who is managing at site and city-wide level.
A last point, we have looked at the proposed specific amendments and there are only 3 which we could agree to without reservation or consideration of other factors – where they match what’s already happening, what seems to work without a hitch, or what’s in the Management Handbook. The rest need some if not a lot of work, and some whole sections of the Rules need a thorough overhaul and updating and we could start on these if we had a better idea of BCC responses on the points above
Birmingham & District Allotment Cooperative