Birmingham & District Allotment Confederation

Four further consultation meeting were convened during January 2023 to share suggested changes to the proposed Management Agreement and to give associations and individual members the opportunity to question members of the Executive and Working Party.

Four recurring themes from the meetings are summarised below:

1: The agreement shared by the Council is unacceptable. The changes suggested improve the document considerably but there is still room for improvement and clarification in a number of areas.
2: Continuing to expect officers, committees and associations to manage sites whilst denying them access to adequate training, support and funding is unreasonable.
3: Any new agreement must be subject to scrutiny by the National Allotment Society and considered acceptable by them. Only then will BDAC executive advise Associations to sign it.
4: The long-term future of allotments in Birmingham is dependent on finding a management model acceptable to all stakeholders. This may involve changes to association’s status, association management structure and changes to BDAC and its executive.

Some of these issues involved need short-term objectives whist others may be long-term and require further discussion and working parties.

The records of the meeting are not official minutes and have not been agreed or signed by the persons present. However, it was felt useful to document them in some format.