Floods
| NEWS |  | | | | | SPORT | | | | FOOD AND WINE | | | | | | WHAT'S ON | | | | NEWS | | |
|
|
|
Flood-hit growers' rebate plea vetoed
OXFORD City Council leaders have refused for the second time to waive a year's rent for allotment holders in West Oxford who have been flooded out.
Last month, the Osney, St Thomas and New Botley Allotment Association asked the council for its first rent rebate in its 155-year history after crops were destroyed by flooding in last summer's floods.
Their plots were damaged again as bad weather struck the city in January.
As a result, the 200-member association refused to pay its annual £1,097 rent bill.
The plea for 12 months' grace was renewed today by association secretary and former Lord Mayor John Power.
He said: "Allotment holders were flooded out again at the weekend.
"The council has told us we can pay by instalments, but we will only be paying what we can afford to pay."
City councillor Antonia Bance said: "If a football pitch was waterlogged, then we would not charge teams for playing matches and I think the council could make a small gesture of goodwill when there are allotments under water."
Jim Campbell, executive member for better finances, referred the matter to the environment scrutiny committee for a full report on "acts of God" and how other local authorities dealt with the issue.
He added: "We have paid out £450,000 over the past three years to allotment holders in Oxford and we are very appreciative of the work the allotments association does.
"We have considered this request very carefully - but we are not here to make gestures."
6:25pm Monday 17th March 2008
Print 
Email this 
Comment
What are these links for?
If you liked this article and would like to share it with others on the web who might be searching for good content we've made it easy for you to do it.
At the bottom of all articles, you'll see links to six sites. These sites - commonly called 'social bookmark' or 'social news' sites - have large communities of web users who share and rate interesting, useful and fun things on the web.
Clicking the links will automatically add the address of the story you are reading to one of these sites, letting you share it with others. Each site will ask you to register to share stories. Registration is free and once a member, you can store, recommend and search for stories that interest you.
More on Digg
More on del.icio.us
More on Furl
More on reddit
More on NowPublic/
More on Yahoo!
