It’s been a momentous 4 months for Bridge View Allotments. In October 2023 The Strutts offered to gift the land the allotments stand on to the Bridge View Allotment Association and after extensive consultation and research to understand what the Association’s liabilities would be if they accepted The Strutts offer, the Association voted to accept the offer in an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) in February 2024. At the same time it was agreed that the Association become a co-op, and in April 2024 we became a registered co-operative, Bridge View Allotments Limited, where all allotment holders and their partners are members with equal voting rights.
Raising Funds
The legal costs of transferring the land from The Strutts to ourselves could be up to £2000 so we are devising several fund raising initiatives. The first was a plant sale at the plant market on Sunday 12th May 2024 in Belper Market Square.
This was highly successful. We are continuing to sell plants from various points round the allotments so please support us by buying some. If you want to make a direct donation to this cause please contact Carol on chawley79@gmail.com and she’ll send you our account details.
Water supply
A big disadvantage of the site is that it has no mains water, and in 2023 steps were made to try to rectify this. A grant was obtained from Belper Town Council for Severn Trent to survey the site, who thought there was a pipe running from Bridge View to the end of East Terrace and suggested we try to find it. Fruitless digging of several large holes along the supposed route of the pipe was undertaken but no pipe was found – it turns out it was terminated at the Bridge View end. Connecting water to the site at the Bridge View end would cost £3000 at least, and looked to be technically very difficult. In consequence in September 2023 the idea was abandoned, in favour of building a large rainwater collection device for all the allotments.
Grants were obtained from the Central England Co-operative Society and from Belper Town Council for the materials and then the allotment holders all worked together over two months to complete the work. As with everything on the allotments, all the materials had to be carried onto the site by hand!
First, in February 2024, trenches were dug and a concrete mixer hired and concrete footings laid.
Concrete footings complete
Then the wooden structure was constructed and 4 x 1 cubic metre IBC’s moved into place.
Finally a plastic coated corrugated iron roof was added and the water station was completed April 2024.
The allotments now have the capacity to collect 4000 litres/888 gallons of rainwater for use on the site.
For more background about Bridge View Allotments, see our website here.
