 The AGM | 13 November 2009, 13:31
The AGM was a great success with a very high turnout. We would like to welcome the new committee members that were elected. Ron Barber has stood down as the site warden and we would like to thank him for all of his considerable efforts over the last year or so. He has made a massive contribution in terms of fundraising, wisdom and practical support for the various activities that we carry out through the year. The picture is of one of the smaller pumpkins Ron has contributed to the cause through the year ! |
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 S.A.G.A Annual General Meeting | 09 November 2009, 15:35 We are holding our first AGM on the 12th November at 7:30 pm at Storrington Village Hall.
- Chairman's Welcome Phillip Mitchell Summary of what has happened to the allotments over the last Year
- Finances Kay White Treasury Report
- Membership Discounts Kay White Your SAGA membership card entitles you to discounts at local suppliers. Kay will give you the details.
- Ravenscroft Charles Grayson Update on events at Ravenscroft and future plans
- Fund Raising Activities Phillip Mitchell How and why we raise additional funding and how you can contribute.
- Election of Officials Tricia Mitchell Election of a new SAGA committee
- Any Other Business floor
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 Parham Autumn Foraging | 18 October 2009, 14:35
We attended the Parham Autumn foraging event and thank everybody involved for inviting us to promote Allotment growing in the local area. We had a range of chutneys made from allotment produce along with winter vegetables, soups and a range of Kings seeds.
As we left we all reflected how pleasant these events are and how genuinely enthusiastic so many people are about growing their own food. We received a huge amount of encouragements from lots of people for the produce from the allotments and for the promotion of allotment growing. |
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 National Allotment Week | 19 August 2009, 14:32
SAGA manned a stall, along with the county council, to promote allotment growing and recycling in Storrington at the weekend next to the Veg Patch vegetable store. It was a great success and lots of fun talking to all the people who dropped in. Peoples interest in locally grown foods seem insatiable. |
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 Ravenscroft | 19 August 2009, 14:43
The parish council has now let a large number of plots on Ravenscroft. Storrington & Sullingtons waiting list for allotments is now down to 9 parishioners. That means that since April this year we ( SAGA and the Parish Council) have reduced the waiting list from over thirty to nine. Of the nine 4 people on the waiting list are new since April. The majority of the people still on the waiting list would like a plot on Amberley Road. I believe that there are still a small number of free plots on Ravenscroft. |
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 Parham Garden Weekend | 12 July 2009, 11:32 Everybody who reads these pages regularly know we have had an exciting year with taking over the management of Amberley Rd in April, welcoming 18 new plot holders, helping the parish council with the letting of plots on Ravenscroft and preparing for the Parham Garden Festival.
We attend the Parham Garden Festival to promote Allotments in general and especially in the Storrington & Sullington area. We also raise some money for S.A.G.A for the provision and maintenance of local Allotments.
Its also lots of fun so a good time is had by all that attend.
We were lucky enough to win the "Best Nursery Display" award for our stand at Parham. This was presented by Lady Emma Barnard. In addition Parham have offered us a number of Season Tickets as a prize which we will give to new members, with families, on the Allotment so they can enjoy the beatiful gardens at the estate.
Pictures of the display and award ceremony can be seen by following this link Parham Garden Weekend Pictures |
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 Parham Garden Weekend | 11 June 2009, 14:15 S.A.G.A will be at the Parham Gardens Weekend on the weekend of the 11th July where the theme is the environment, allotments and growing your own. We will bring some of our excellent produce with us for you to try and in addition we will be encouraging the young and the old alike to "pot up" or sow some vegetables. See you there.
To all allotment holders we will be asking for donations of produce for the Saturday and Sunday so don't say you were not warned ! |
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 Progress at Amberley Rd Allotments | 04 June 2009, 12:56
We have had a tremendously successful May. Since S.A.G.A has taken over the running of the allotments in April we have:
- Re-arranged plots to create 11 new Plots
- Put two plots into good order so that they can be let
This has allowed us to offer 19 plots to let. 18 of these are let and one is in the process of being let. At the start of April there were 19 plot holders. I'm please to say that we now have 37 plot holders and one to join soon.
May I offer thanks to all the people who have given up their time to achieve this and most of all to the new tenants for their enthusiasm and endeavor.
We believe that the Parish Council will soon start letting plots on Ravescroft. From my understanding this should satisfy all of the waiting list, leave excess plots and the only people who will still be on the waiting list are those who applied specifically for a plot on Amberley Road. |
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 Letting of Plots on Amberley Rd | 13 May 2009, 11:40
We have had a tremendous 2 weeks and have managed to let 13 of the 15 plots available on the site. The other two will be let in the near future. We are also having two additional plots prepared by removing tree stumps and general rubbish. This will be available to let in the near future.
Its great to see the allotments full again and all of the plots starting to be worked. My striking impression is the enthusiasm and excitement of the new tenants who range from hardened gardeners to novices.
As of yet the same progress cannot be seen on the Ravenscroft Site where there are over 26 plots available. The Parish Council has not yet been able to let a single one of these. |
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 Allotments in Storrington & Sullington | 10 April 2009, 08:47
For those who enjoy reading legal agreements and getting to grips with detail the links below include the lease agreed between the Parish Council and S.A.G.A and the two site maps for Ravenscroft and Amberley Rd showing the new plots,
| | Lease Storrington & Sullington Parish Council and S.A.G.A |
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 Parham Autumn Foraging | 03 November 2008, 11:38
We had a tent at the Parham Autumn Foraging event on the 19th October to raise the profile of S.A.G.A , communicate our aims and to raise funds for the self management of the allotments. We all had a splendid time and the public got to sample some excellent produce sourced from the allotments. These included a variety of chutneys, pumpkin pie, soup and a range of vegetables that is a testament to the fecundity of the soil in Amberley Road. In total we raised £182. We thank all the people who visited us for their interest, donations and good wishes. |
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 Response from Parish Council to Proposal For Self Managment | 6th Oct 2008, 11:54
The Parish has responded to our proposal to self management. Their response is generally positive. There appear to be two main issues. Firstly about funding where we have asked the Parish to withdraw funding over a period of two years and they wish to withdraw it over 6 Months, Secondly the the necessary preparation for self-management of Ravenscroft seems to have caused some confusion within the Parish Council. We have asked for a meeting to iron out the remaining issues in a timely manner.
We will , of course, keep you posted as to any further developments. |
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 Allotments and Usage | July 28th 2008, 08:45
Just to give some more accurate figures about the number of people waiting for allotments, the number of allotments and the number currently not in use. These figures were obtained under the freedom of information act in June 2008 from the Parish Council.
In total in the Parish there are 42 plots, a waiting list of 24 and 14 plots not currently let. We believe that by rearranging and better managing the Amberley Road and Ravenscroft site that all of the outstanding waiting list can be accommodated.
A more detailed breakdown of the figures can be downloaded at the link below.
| | Allotment Status |
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 Article in West Sussex Gazette 23rd July 2008 | 23 July 2008, 11:04
It was good to see the article in the Gazette today with the results of the Village Ballot. A big thank you to all of the Parishioners who voted against the Allotment Strategy and also to Jeannie Knight for all of her support during the campaign.
I would just like to correct the statement by Ray Dawe in the article that the result would limit the provision of allotments to the 23 people on the Amberley Road site. There are currently 44 to 50 allotment sites across Ravenscroft and Amberley Road. Ravenscroft is available for the next 5 years and a concerned parishioner has informed me that West Sussex County Council may be open to extending the lease on this site. We believe that by better managing the resources available many more people can have access to this wonderful resource. As previously stated we intend to re-organise the Amberley Road site to provide more plots and as an ex Ravenscroft allotment holder myself I know there is great scope for using this site more effectively. I do hope that the Parish Council do not suffer a collective sulk and can work with us to make things better for all current allotment holders and all those who would like to be allotment holders.
The ballot clearly stated that the parishoners of Storrington & Sullington did not support the Parish Councils Allotment Strategy. This does not mean that together, the Parish Council and the Allotment Holders, we cannot develop a new and better strategy that serves the needs of the people of Storrington & Sullington.
If anybody would like to put a Thank You poster up the posters are available by clicking on the following links.
| | Poster Thank You.doc.pdf |
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 Parish Council Meeting Wednesday 23 July | 21 July 2008, 10:35
There will be a parish council meeting at the Parish Hall at 7pm on the 23rd July. We have asked to present our petition to the Council but as this was not included on their agenda we intend to present it to them in during the meeting. A lot of effort has gone into the petition and a big thank you to the 1,960 people who have signed it. As ever the more the merrier. I believe that members of the press will be there as well.
A couple of items of interest on the agenda :
Item 17 Visit Of Continental Market, this was an item on the ballot. Does this mean that they have counted the vote for this item ?
Item 4. Declaration of Village Vote Results available so far. This begs the question how long does it take to count 6000 votes. |
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 Ongoing Problems With Dates. | 21 July 2008, 08:15
The ballot for the so called "Allotment Strategy" is now closed and we eagerly await the results. It is sad to report that the Parish Councils general confusion over dates seems not to have deserted them. The poll was due to close on Monday the 15th July, whoops sorry Tuesday 15th July. It has been reported by concerned parishioners that the ballot boxes were open until Thursday. All credit to the Parish Council though, they were seen collecting the ballot boxes themselves once they discovered their mistake !
Further confusion is being caused by the Parish Council being unable to tell anybody when the count will be completed and the results published. Maybe after their terrible run of luck with the calendar they have become risk averse.
The author of these pages, in an attempt to help the Parish Council, will be sending them a 2008 Allotment Holders Calendar.
Our petition now has over 1,900 signatures. The majority of these are local ( approx 85% ). We hope to see this reflected in the results of the village ballot.
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 Parham Garden Weekend - Support Grows | 13 July 2008, 20:54 We have had a display at the Parham Garden Weekend and have had an amazing response from the public. People have responded to the threat to the allotments and many have similar stories from their local communities.
It appears that allotments all over the country are being sold for short term gain while leaving the local community impoverished. It does beg the question whether the councils who are selling off these assets are serving the local community or other masters.
The good news now over 1,700 people have signed our petition of which approx 90% are local. |
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 Meridian News Monday 7th July 2008 | 08 July 2008, 10:00 I very much enjoyed watching the Meridian news item on the Amberley Allotments. For anybody who missed it here it is again ( click on the link below ) I was interested to hear Ms Worthington-Lees talk about the pressures for development from higher levels of government. This somewhat contradicts the message from the Parish Council that this is only about providing more Allotments. The truth will out ! | | Meridian News Monday 7th July 2008 |
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 Land Prices and The Cost Of Fryern Road | 07 July 2008, 08:27
One of our enterprising Parishioners had a look in the newspaper to try and get an idea of the cost of agricultural land in this area. He found, and I accept that this is indicative and not definitive, that the average price in his survey was between 5.1 and 9.7 thousand pounds per acre. This begs the question what is so special about the Fryern Road site at £20,000 per acre? Is there a premium for poor soil, poor access and a large rabbit population ? |
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 The Parish Council Works Weekends | 06 July 2008, 16:40
Its very good to know that members of the Parish Council visit these pages, especially at the weekend, to know what is really going on in the community. The parish website has now been modified to include a warning about entering an invalid number as Voter Number. Its a shame they cannot correct the fictitious date of Monday 15th July that went out on the Voting Form as the closing date of the ballot. |
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 I'm beginning to feel sorry for the Parish Council | 04 July 2008, 23:00
As you can appreciate we have have been keenly awaiting the village ballot. Today I was told by a supporter that her papers had arrived and this evening received an e-mail saying the ballot was online at Village Ballot. I went onto the site, read the form , noted that the closing date is now the 14th July, and typed in a fictitious number ( the number 99 ) in "Your Voter Number". After that I clicked on a number of options and chose the Submit Button and lo and behold I got a message thanking me for my Vote!.
Its very difficult to have confidence in a system that does not attempt to do and positive validation of a Voter Number against, for example, the voter address.
Its not really for me to comment, having only spent over 20 years in the IT industry, but in my humble opinion this is symptomatic of the Parish Councils relaxed and badly thought out view on the Allotment Strategy. Whether or not voter 99's views will be added to the final tally it shows sloppiness, a carelessness towards the voters and a complete lack of rigour and clear thinking.
Seeing their lack of expertise (IT ?) I was not surprised to see on the ballot that they said there had only been 7 written objections. This whole web site is a written objection, the articles in the newspapers and radio are objections, the 1300 signatures on the petition are objections and I hope the TV broadcast next week will also be an objection. They misrepresent the case against their ill thought out strategy and in doing so they patronize all of us!
I have mailed this to the Parish Council so the mysterious 99 can be removed from the tally and as much fair play as this sloppiness allows can be done.
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 Posters | 04 July 2008, 10:00
We have created two new posters to support our campaign. If you support us and oppose the Parish Councils "Allotment Strategy" can you print out a copy of the poster of your choice and put it up in a window or prominent place. Click on the links below to download the poster of your choice.
This would be of great help to our campaign as there are now a number of days before the Ballot closes on , we think, the 15th July and we would like to keep it in the public eye.
In anticipation thank you very much.
Poster One No No No |
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 Meridian News | 03 July 2008, 13:00
Those nice people from Meridian turned up at 9.30am and spent a couple of hours doing interviews and filming parts of the site. I believe that they will broadcast the item on Tuesday or Wednesday. Of course as soon as we know the date and time of the broadcast it will be on this website first ! |
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 Suitability Of The Proposed Site | 02 July 2008, 08:18
We have had a considerable response via e-mail. An interesting mail arrived yesterday describing a perilous journey to the proposed new site and the suitability of the site itself. I was very concerned about the safety aspect of the new site as allotment holders come in all shapes and sizes, the young, the middle aged and the old. If people feel that they cannot get to the site safely many will be discouraged and worst of all people could get hurt. Follow the link below to read this and other feedback.
Feedback |
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 Meridian News | 01 July 2008, 19:38
Good news on the media front. Meridian will be at the allotments between 9 and 10am on Thursday 3rd July and will be conducting some interviews. I expect that there will be a good turnout of allotment holders and concerned residents.
In addition I was contacted by The Argus today and they will be covering the story again this week and we are expecting an article in the The West Sussex Gazette tomorrow. |
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 West Sussex Gazette | 30 June 2008, 18:55
We were visited by the West Sussex Gazette today who took some photographs and caught up with developments. They also donated some attractive posters which you will no doubt be seeing as you drive through Storrington. It was great to see so many young children there today and if you look at the photograph to the left you will see one of them managed to find an equally young slow worm. We have now had a lot of support via the web site and we thank all of you for your encouragement. |
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 BBC Southern Counties Radio Sussex | 30 June 2008, 20:23
I had a chance to listen to the radio broadcast from the BBC today. The interview(s) were done last Friday. I was interested to hear the the councilor interviewed said that a soil analysis would be carried out on the new site. We look forward to news on this. Please click on the link below and find "Southern Breakfast" and then click on "Friday" if you would like to hear the interview again. You might have to fast forward ( about 40 Minutes) to get to the bits about the allotments. It was also very touching to hear that they did not inform us earlier in the process to reduce our anxiety. Its a long time since many of us were in short trousers ( skirts ). | | BBC Radio Broadcast 27th June |
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 Ballot Date | 30 June 2008, 15:19
I recently mailed the Parish Council to get the start and end date of the ballot and to find out who is supervising the ballot and under what rules . I received a partial reply today. The closing date will be the 15 th July. This is a different date to the flyer put through all our letterbox's by the Parish Council saying the 9th July. I don't know who is more confused the Parish Council or me !
Click here to view the flyer sent out by the parish council with the ballot date |
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 National Society of Allotment & Leisure Gardners (NSALG) | 30 June 2008, 14:32
The Parish council said at their meeting of the 26th June that they had received permission to proceed from the Secretary of State. Once a request has been made of the Secretary of State it is forwarded by their office to NSALG. NSALG have received no such notification. NSALG advise us that this process is very prompt. We asked them to check their mail this morning and they still have nothing. We will keep you posted ! |
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 Allotment Holders Propose More Plots On Amberley Allotments | 29 June 2008, 13:11
When we have a break from campaigning the allotment holders propose to look at the Amberley Road site to see if the plots can be re-arranged and resized to increase the number of plots on the site to allow more people to have the great pleasure of being an allotment holder and working this site.
Also worth noting is that we now have in excess of 1,300 signatures on our petition. |
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 Storrington Village Day June 28 2008 | 27 June 2008, 12:23
We will be at the Storrington Village day on Saturday so if you wish to sign our petition or pick up more information about the proposed changes to allotments in the parish come and talk to us.
We now have over 800 signatures on the petition. The more the merrier ! |
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 BBC Southern Counties Radio | 27 June 2008, 03:03
We will be putting our case to those nice people at BBC Southern Counties Radio in the morning and then we must make our case to the people of Storrington & Sullington for the Public Ballot. |
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 Outcome of the Parish Meeting 26 June 2008 | 27 June 2008, 02:49
This may not surprise you but it was a very bad tempered meeting of the parish council. There was a full house and the issue of the allotments was pushed to the fore.
The Parish Council, aware no doubt of the brouhaha related to their allotment strategy ,have proposed a public ballot. A ballot card will be distributed to parishioners and they will be able to vote on a number of issues including what the Council euphemistically calls their 'Allotment Strategy' ( see link below for theses documents ).
Enclosed with the ballot will be the councils summary of the strategy. The date of the 7th July was mention for the ballot ( I wonder if the printers are already working on the paper ). It was drawn to the attention of the council that this was only 10 Days away and that ,fairs fair, we should also be able to submit our side of the argument in the ballot. The answer was no. The sound of people being steamroller could be heard miles away as could the collapse of the pillars of democracy.
The sense of farce was heightened by the insistence that the money released from the sale of the allotments was of no import compared to the long term provision of allotments. In the original communication from our civic leaders it was suggested that the money could be used to encourage Southern Water to provide sewerage for our community. It now appears that the money could be used for all sorts of thing not yet specified. Many things were suggested by our leaders such as a toilet. This seemed to rather skip over the fact that they have just spent a fortune in turning the village pavements into a long flat version of a suburban driveway with an array of brightly colored bricks ( not a though for our parish bladders then ) .
The new proposed site was discussed. The site is thought to be on clay and it was suggested that at least a soil test should be done by the parish to see if it could be made suitable for allotments. This idea was turned down as obviously practical details have no part in a parish strategy.
They are proposing 29 houses on the site. A proposal for 9 houses to the north of the monastery ( e.g cheek to jowl with the allotments) was turned down because of issues relating to traffic , sewerage and water demands ( which according to the minutes "set a precedent" minute 98 from meeting 13 Dec 2007 Planning & Development Committee ). Apparently the planned development would exit onto Amberley Rd dealing with with the traffic part of the precedent but then I suppose sewerage and water count for nothing.
The Parish has decided and it will use what small levers of power that it has at its disposal to get its way. It is our duty to resists ! Letters 3rd June 2008 |
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 The Press | 26 June 2008, 22:08
Our campaign is generating a lot of interest in the press. Today the Argos visited us and on Monday afternoon ( 4pm ) the West Sussex Gazette will be visiting the Allotments.
In addition the petition now has over 800 signatories and reflects a considerable amount of local support. |
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 Meeting Parish Hall 7 pm 26 June 2008 |  There will be a public meeting at the Parish hall ( Thakeham Road, Storrington) at 7.00 pm. Everybody is welcome. |
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