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 - Article 017
NARBOROUGH & LITTLETHORPE - LGA Leicestershire
WHO WE ARE
The Narborough & Littlethorpe Allotment Gardeners are a duly constituted community group serving the villages of Narborough & Littlethorpe in South West Leicestershire. We are members of the National Society of Allotment & Leisure Gardeners (NSALG Ltd) and are represented on the Leicestershire Allotment & Gardeners Council (CLAGC.)
The Narborough Allotments are situated right in the centre of publicly owned land.
We are to be found just off the Leicester Road , Narborough with the M1 Motorway thundering past with its embankments hosting the local rabbit population. Central Railway has its regular traffic of passenger and goods trains passing on our boundary with the Leicestershire & Rutlands Wildlife Reserve, a triple SSI called locally the "Narborough Bog" and the Narborough Parish Council Playing Fields - Cricket in summer and Football in winter as neighbours. We sit nicely in the centre of all this land.
The Allotments are owned by the Narborough Parish Council and comprise 53 standard 300sq yd plots. Part of the Allotments was formerly the site depot for the M1 Motorway construction therefore the part which we use as our "Community Area" is housed on these rock-hard depot site foundations.
We have a Management Committee and some Codes of Practice for the running of the site. We are striving for "Self Management" and whilst technically our Landlord the PC is still in control, we have partially managed the site quite well on their behalf.
The Council hold an annual Best Kept Allotment competition and we all take part in the Village Show both as organisers and competitors. We have developed our Community Area for social occasions, summer B-B-Qs, Bonfire Night Special (often the end of a useful Work Weekend when we burn the rubbish from the plots/site) and we hold an annual dinner, fund-raising events - Quiz Sheets along with a night at the pub in the skittle alley. So life "Down-on-the-Plots" is not all work and no play.
We have a 5 year Rolling Programme of site improvements - currently at year 3.
During this time we have achieved lots of improvements. We started out with a gift of a 40foot Portacabin which we have converted as our "Cabin-Learning Centre" comprising a meeting room; disabled standard toilet suite; and small kitchenette. We have surrounded the entire allotment site with rabbit proof fencing to DEFRA standards, installed a septic tank toilet system; refurbished the portacabins interior; fenced off the Community Area and planted hedges to prevent intruders (sloe - blackthorn prunus spinosa.) We hold work-weekends twice a year - spring and autumn/winter on site improvements. The majority of the funding towards the sites regeneration has come from grants. The National Lottery (Awards for All); the Leicestershire County Council; Blaby District Council (Crime & Disorder Fund); Shell Better Britain; The Co-operative Society - Community Awards; The SEED Scheme and the NHS Trust and the ARI (Esmee Fairbairn Foundation) to name a few.
Without the financial help of these grant making bodies, our site would be just like many others going no where . But with a lot of some old fashioned "get up an go" attitude and getting stuck in we are slowly seeing the fruits from all our hard work and efforts to make our site a better one for all our plot holders - not all members of NSALG
We
hope that by our efforts they will want to join us.
[Trevor Matthews]
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