Dartford Road Allotments Association

Member of the National Society of Allotment and Leisure Gardeners Ltd.

Chairman

Mr Barry Palmer

Secretary

Mr Graeme Laidlaw, 262 Princes Road, Dartford DA1 2PZ

Treasurer

Mr Derek Jones

Grounds Manager

Mr John Bourne

Newsletter Editor

Mr Said Gousy

ABOUT THE ASSOCIATION ...

Dartford Road Allotments Association was formed in 1991 to manage Dartford Road Allotments under a lease obtained from Dartford Borough Council. The site, the main entrance to which is located at the junction of Somerset Road and Devonshire Avenue (try finding us on the MAP), has an area of approximately 6.66 acres in total and the equivalent of around 100 full sized plots.There are 114 plotholders on the site at the present time. The site has recently been 100% rented and a waiting list has been established.

THINGS TO SEE...

• Documentation and rules for running an allotment site, as tried and tested at Dartford Road
• Details of vacant plots (if any!)
• A text-based guided tour (useful if you ever visit the site, and updated regularly)
• Site Map (sunglasses required!)
• Dartford Grammar School for Girls conducted a recycling survey on our site in 1997 - Click here to see the results, and some nice photographs taken during the survey.

NEW LEASE ...

A new lease for the Dartford Road site has been signed, covering the period April 1999 - March 2006. Pictured left following the signing of the lease are Don Vagg, Nigel Rainey, Graeme Laidlaw (Secretary from April 1, 1999), Mrs Scrivenor, Richard Wiltshire (out-going Secretary), Bob Scrivenor, Barry Palmer, Alan Hewitt and Bob Reynolds. This photograph originally appeared in the Dartford Borough News, April-May 1998.

MEETINGS ...

The Seventh Annual General Meeting was held on Wednesday May 27, 1998.

The Twenty-Ninth Meeting of the Committee was held on Sunday June 7, 1998.

The Thirtieth Meeting of the Committee was held on Sunday September 13, 1998.

The Thirty-First Meeting of the Committee was held on Sunday December 6, 1998.

The Thirty-Second Meeting of the Committee was held on Sunday March 3, 1999.

The Eighth Annual General Meeting was held on Wednesday May 28, 1999.

The Thirty-Third Meeting of the Committee was held on Sunday June 13, 1999.

The Thirty-Fourth Meeting of the Committee was held on Tuesday September 14, 1999.

The Thirty-Fifth Meeting of the Committee was held on Tuesday December 7, 1999.

The Ninth Annual General Meeting was held on Wednesday May 24, 2000.

NEWSLETTERS ...

Spring Newsletter, 1999

New garden tools have been awarded by B&Q under the "Quest" scheme to the QED Allotments Group for use by students from North West Kent College's School of Supported Learning on their plot at Dartford Road Allotments. Pictured below (left to right) at the hand-over ceremony are: Helen Munford (Student, NW Kent College), David Sharp (Quest Officer, B&Q Dartford Store), Cllr Ivor Jones (Mayor of Dartford), Richard Wiltshire (Chair, QED Allotments Group), Alan Cremer (Secretary, QED), Cllr Frank Byrne (Plotholder, Dartford Road), Cllr Margaret Stock (Deputy Mayor of Dartford), and Cllr Anne Allen (Deputy Opposition Leader, Dartford Borough Council).

Each November for the past four years students taking the Second Year BA Geography Course in Geographical Techniques at the School of Oriental and African Studies have made use of Dartford Road Allotments to hone their skills in a range of participatory appraisal methods, including individual interviews, group discussions, participatory mapping exercises, triangulation and seasonal diagraming, in readiness for field work conducted in villages in the Indian State of Kerala. Here student Susie and plotholder Stan draft a map of the site. Local Agenda 21 may be about "thinking globally, acting locally", but at Dartford Road we "act globally" as well. For a fuller report Click Here. For some background information on the Demographic Structure of the Dartford Road site, and how it has changed over the 1991-99 period, Click Here.