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| The '''Royal Paddock Allotments''' are adjacent to ] and ] in ], ], ]. Initially chartered in 1921 by ], they are used for gardening. Rent is quite low and there are 200 plots to be used. An annual competition is held to award a silver cup for 'best gardener'. The Royal Paddocks Allotments are run by committee. That body is probably typical of it's kind. The normal purpose of an allotment committee is to allocate tenancies, collect rents and carry out day-to-day administration. Allotments are intended for "poor working men" - officially to feed their families, unofficially to escape nagging wives without going down the pub. The purpose of the Royal Paddocks Allotments committee seems to be to gentrify the allotment system. Allotments are supposed to be allocated on a fair, first-come-first-served basis, without preference, yet several committee members have two plots. A tenant's committee member has four plots - three of them adjacent. An allotment tenant can be expected to keep his plot tidy, meaning that it should not spill over to adjacent plots. The Royal Paddocks Allotments Management Committee has extended this - operating a "scorched-earth" policy, whereby all ground is to be rendered bare and any grass is to be attacked using noisy, smelly, petrol-driven strimmers. This is against Government policy. A recent Government report has indicated that there are 30% more species on allotments than in public parks - this diversity afforded by variation in usage. The Royal Paddocks Allotments Management Committee wishes to stifle this variation. They have rules regarding weeds, neglect and overgrowth of paths. The Management Committee secretary is among the worst offenders in this respect, yet seeks to criticise others. Traditionally "poor working men" have exercised ingenuity in re-using materials on allotments. Old sash windows and floor boards have been made into seed beds, the boards held in place by driving wooden pegs into the ground. At The Royal Paddocks Allotments, this traditional improvisation is deplored by the Management Committee which advocates the use of modern materials, especially plastics. Some of this plastic is coloured green, perhaps to persuade us that it is environmentally friendly. This is not the case - plastics are made from oil, - a product in limited supply. It may be expected that plastic items will be flown in from the far-east or may arrive on container ships. Whatever the method, we are seeing increased and unnecessary use of the earth's finite resources and increasing pressure put on the environment, disturbing man's comfort. Plastic materials have a limited useability - they are destroyed by ultra-violet light in the very environment they were designed to be used in. They can then only be discarded - to be incinerated, causing pungent black smoke, accompanied by the release of cyanide. Natural materials are broken down by fungi and insects, the whole returning to the food-chain. Committees are, indeed, responsible for more than the invention of the camel. | |||
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