New Lettings Procedure

Dear Site Reps,

The allotment service recently shared with you their new plans for plot letting. They need a new system as they are now no longer willing to share the emails of people on the waiting list with Site Reps due to GDPR concerns.

Initial feedback to us was that many thought the new system was complicated and would be too slow. We decided to email the Councils ETS Committee to share those concerns and hopefully get them to use a less complex procedure. (Email copied below for your information)

We think that Site Reps are best positioned to arrange plot letting and should be enabled to do so as easily as possible. Please let us know your thoughts about this.

Many Site Reps now have non personal emails addresses they use for their Site Rep duties. For example RoedaleSiteRep@gmail.com

We encourage those of you still using a personal email address to make a new email address just for your Site Rep work so your personal email address is not on the website. Use a free service like gmail or hotmail. These are easy to set up, please contact us if you need assistance.

Please let us know if you do change your email address so we can update the contact details on your site page on the website. Every site has its own page on the website. Let us know if you would like anything added.

https://www.bhaf.org.uk/content/category/sites/sitelist

All the best,
BHAF Commitee

Dear ETS Committee Councillors, 28.06.21

We appreciate your commitment to the Allotments Service and the plotholder community in Brighton and Hove. We recently had our first meeting with the new projects officer working on the delivery of the Allotments Strategy as agreed at November's ETS Committee meeting. This is to update you on a separate issue affecting the delivery of the service. We have 2500 people on the waiting list (an all time high) and many vacant plots falling into overgrown states due the suspension of lettings over Covid.

At a time when plot letting needs to happen as quickly as possible, BHCC has introduced a new lettings process which will be slower and requires extra admin staff to administer. The Council say they are doing this for GDPR reasons which mean they can no longer share email addresses of people on the waiting list with the Site Reps who let the plots.

BHAF believes this a misinterpretation of the GDPR legislation, which does allow the sharing of email addresses if it is in the person's legitimate interest (i.e. to be let a plot). However the Council are adamant they will no longer share the email addresses with Site Reps.

While we still think that issue needs addressing, in order to get plot letting happening as quickly as possible BHAF came up with a simple solution using current resources which means that BHCC does not need to share the emails list with site reps.

BHAF Suggested Procedure which was sent to officers on 19.05.21 - Summarised

When a vacancy exists BHCC to send an email and text to people at the top of the waiting list asking them to look up their allotment site on the BHAF website and contact the site rep whose email is listed there to arrange a viewing. Site rep to be informed of name of people at top of the list.

However BHCC have enacted the following procedure. The below is directly quoted from a letter to all Site Reps sent on 25.06.21

BHCC New procedure for plot letting received from BHCC on 25.06.21 - Quoted

“We (Allotment Service) will contact you (Site Reps) to check your availability and then contact people on the waiting list to arrange times for them to meet you. We will provide you with the up to date waiting list. The list will include a list of names of the waiting list applicants, along with their order on the waiting list for your site.

When you are arranging a plot letting, please let us know the date and time and how many people you want us to contact from the waiting list. We will contact the applicants ourselves, first to ask them to confirm they are still interested. When they confirm back to us, we will give them the date and time and your name, and we will send you the list of attendees. If you would prefer us to pass your phone number or your email to the person so they can arrange the time with you directly, please reply to let us know

Many thanks,
The Allotments Service”

BHCCs new procedure states that they are willing to pass the Site Reps email to the person on the waiting list so they can arrange the letting directly.

If BHCC are willing to pass on Site Reps emails to people on the waiting list then why not avoid the delay of the unnecessary conversation administered by BHCC staff and simply immediately direct people on the waiting list to the BHAF website where all site reps contact emails are already displayed with the Site Reps consent and are in the public domain listed site by site. This resource is there ready and waiting to be used.

Best Regards,
BHAF Committee