Cock-a-doodle-boo!
Families fight back over cockerel ban on allotment
COCKERELS and their dawn chorus have been part of life on a Yorkshire allotment site for decades.
But a new management regime and a 72-year- old law banning the noisy birds from the nation’s allotments mean they all face the chop.
The Rotherham Allotment Alliance (RAA) recently took over control of the Avenue Road Allotments in Wath- upon- Dearne, South Yorkshire.
And it has decided to impose the dormant law to ban all cockerels from the site – after receiving just a single noise complaint.
This has ruffled feathers among bird-loving gardeners who formed a group named Cockerel Lives Matter to save them.
The group has vowed to fight the order to evict the cockerels and said it will refuse to pay any fines and ignore orders to oust the birds from the allotments. Leading rebel Jean Wilson, 62, said she will ‘chain herself to the fence’ before giving up her three beloved cockerels. She said: ‘Each has their own lovely personalities and they are part of our family.
‘We have been looking in to rehoming them but not many places allow them, so the most viable option is to cull them.’ Around 20 cockerels on the allotment site will be at risk if the clampdown is enforced.
Mrs Wilson said cockerels have been on the plot for 60 years and they have set up a petition to save them. The allotment site has 76 plots and around ten members have joined the group so far.
The RAA sent a letter in August saying: ‘Under the Allotments Act 1950, your tenancy agreement, and the agreement the Alliance has with Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council, cockerels are not permitted on the site.’
When the Mail visited the area the local residents appeared not to object to the cockerels. Dale Scott, 52, said: ‘We do hear them but they are no bother.’
Brian Steele, of the RAA, said: ‘The only livestock allowed by law are hens, rabbits and bees. Cockerels are not permitted.’