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SimononThursday 25 October 2007 - 18:38:16
comment: 0 
More successful dung-running.
SimononSunday 26 April 2009 - 14:11:49
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If you already spend any time on your allotment then you'll know how handy a site loo would be. If you've your own shed then you'll be used to weeing in a bucket (and don't waste it, wee is an excellent compost activator) but the shedless either have to pack up and go home or expose themselves to the neighbours. For some of us it's really no great problem but it's not terribly satisfactory, but a lack of a site loo will actually make an allotment an impossibility for quite some number of folk.
The traditional flush-toilet is the familiar answer, but a flush loo needs sewerage. It's not such a difficult job to lay sewer pipe but it doesn't come cheap - I wouldn't expect any change from £10k for all the groundworks for a traditional loo if the sewer could be picked up in Glendale Avenue.
However, an increasingly popular installation on allotments is the composting toilet.
NatSol have been installing quite a number of their toilets in allotments and the picture is one of theirs. A composting toilet doesn't need a sewer because - well, because it composts all of the tenant contributions which, after a year, is safe to spread on your roses. They sell a complete installation for £several thousand, but they'll also supply the essential components for a do-it-yourself installation and that can cost not much more than £1k which is way cheaper than a conventional affair.
Composting toilets are also more environmentally friendly than flush loos because they don't use water - a very big proportion of domestic water is used for flushing loos - and they don't produce effluent that needs large infrastructure, investment and energy to process. Composting loos are clean - and no, they don't smell if they're looked after - and the humanure they produce is actually useful as a soil conditioner.
SimononThursday 23 April 2009 - 22:49:40
comment: 0 The April edition of the Hungerford Environmental Action Team Food Group newsletter is available
here.
SimononThursday 23 April 2009 - 15:45:40
comment: 0 
Basically, it's a party in your street, in everyone's street. On 19th July we're asking the people of Britain to stop what they're doing and sit down to lunch together. Why? Well for lots of reasons really but mainly just cos we think it'll be fun.
Only it won't be in our street, it'll be on the allotment. It's not just a big self-catered lunch either, but you'll get a better idea from the
official web site.
It's all part of the
We Will If You Will campaign, a response from business and civil society to the challenge from Gordon Brown for us all to live more sustainably.
I believe there is even greater scope for business and the voluntary sector to work with Government to mobilise individuals to take action. So I have asked Fiona Reynolds of the National Trust and Ian Cheshire of B&Q to recommend how this might be achieved.
Gordon Brown November, 2007
The Royal Horticultural Society are a big sponsor of the initiative and there's a new grow your own campaign to go with it called
Eat Seasonably which is tied in with the
Landshare campaign to get people access to land so that they can get growing.
If you have an allotment already then you know all about the benefits of growing your own and rubbing along with your plot buddies, but allotment waiting lists are already long and
The Big Lunch is all set to drive demand ever higher.
Landshare is the part of the campaign that creates the growing space, but it's not directly tied in with the allotment movement and that would seem to be a big opportunity missed because it's only the allotment movement that has the capacity and tradition to sustain the initiative.
Planning for The Big Lunch start now so please get in touch if you want to get involved.
The
Landshare web site goes live after Easter so get in touch too if you're interested in creating a new allotment.
SimononTuesday 31 March 2009 - 21:40:13
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After some considerable negotiation I believe that we've now made progress on a framework for cooperation between the Council and Wash Common allotmenteers. We'll begin discussions after Easter, so more news then, but for now I've taken down the posts on Rules and Rent because in time there will be a more appropriate forum to air those and other issues. I'm grateful to the Chief Executive for his dogged determination to find an agreement which I'm confident will be a foundation we can build on.
SimononTuesday 10 March 2009 - 19:47:02
comment: 0