Monthly Archives: April 2026

WATA Special Bulletin 111 – Skips for early May Bank Holiday Weekend

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As part of the Committee’s ongoing work to improve how the allotment site and plots manage waste, WATA Special Bulletin 111 explains the use of skips that will be on site from 2nd May to 4th May 2026. Click on the image below to download your own copy of the Special Bulletin.

There will be two skips, as usual. However, this time:

 – one skip is for green waste only
 – one skip is for general waste

A member of the Committee will be on site during the skip opening times (see the special bulletin for details) to assist with any questions.

CCTV will be in operation. If the skips are closed, please do not leave rubbish beside them, take it away and return during the designated opening times. Please also note that it is not the Committee’s responsibility to load your rubbish into the skips.

If you have any questions about the bulletin, please contact us on the usual email of readingroadplots@woodley-allotments.org.uk.

Many thanks &
Kind regards

Mike McNamara
Chair – WATA Committee

MANAGED BONFIRES ENDING TOMORROW

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Tomorrow (29th April) will be the final committee-managed bonfire on our allotment site. Please bring any wood waste to the back gate area before 12 noon.

After this date, tenants must burn wood waste on their own plots, with this option ending on 30th April. From 1st May onwards, all wood waste must be disposed of off-site by tenants themselves.

Many Thanks &
Kind Regards

Mike McNamara
Chair WATA Committee

Latest WATA Committee Meeting Bullet Points & WATA/WTC Meeting Bullet Points

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Please find below Bullet Points from our last Committee meeting (9th April 2026) and the last Committee/Woodley Town Council meeting (17th April 2026). Simply click on the images below if you would like a PDF to download and read offline.

If you have any questions/comments, then please let us know by leaving a comment at the bottom of this post – ‘Leave a Reply‘- or by emailing readingroadplots@woodley-allotments.org.uk and we will get back to you with a response.

Finally, we continue to build up our revised Mailing List, if you have not already joined it, you can opt-in here.

Cleaning up our plots – Are you ready for Plot Inspections?

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As everyone will know, we have now stopped all plastic recycling. I would like to thank Woodley Town Council for dealing with the collection and disposal of what had, by then, become a huge amount of plastic waste.

We will continue with metal and glass recycling. Tenants may also continue to place any rubble from their plots onto the large rubble pile by the main gate.

We are also nearing the end of the committee-managed bonfires (11 have taken place to date), which we have been carrying out by the back gate. Two more will be held before the end of April.

That said, there is still a considerable amount of abandoned wood (and other rubbish) lying on plots, as you will see from the gallery of images below. Any plot identifying information has been removed from these images.

We would ask plot holders, once again, to bring any abandoned wood, broken pallets, or tree branch cuttings from their plots to the back gate before the last Wednesday in April, in preparation for our final managed bonfire.

Many thanks &
Kind regards

Mike McNamara
Chair – WATA Committee

Bonfire season ending in two weeks

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There are now only a few weeks to go until the end of the bonfire season, when bonfires will be banned across the entire allotment site until October 2026.

We will be holding our final two on-site, Committee managed bonfires on Wednesday 22nd and Wednesday 29th April. So please bring any old wood/old-broken pallets/tree cuttings you have on your plot to the back gate area before the last of those two dates.

As mentioned previously, plot holders who are unable, for any reason, to move old wood/old-broken pallets/tree cuttings to the bonfire area at the back gate should contact the Committee. We will assist relevant plot holders in dealing with this. Please leave any material you would like burnt at the end of your plot for collection.

You can contact the Committee via email at readingroadplots@woodley-allotments.org.uk, through the Facebook page, or via your Row Representatives.

Many thanks &
Kind regards

Mike McNamara
Chair – WATA Committee

Valid Delivery Address for the Allotment Site

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After a couple of recent missed/diverted deliveries to plot tenants on the allotment site. Here is a definitive delivery address for the Allotment Site that actually works.

You should probably still indicate to any delivery service that the gate is set back from the road and that it does not have a street number.

Reading Road Allotments, Reading Road, Woodley RG5 3AA

You can also use the Website/App What3words and that ‘address’ is powering.lance.rating

AGM 2026 – Meeting Minutes

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Hi,

Please click on the image for your copy of the minutes from the 2026 AGM.

This is a fairly long read; however, we hope it gives all allotment tenants a clear picture of the high level of activity carried out on your behalf since the 2025 AGM. We would also like to extend a special thank you to Wendy Wilkinson, our fantastic Secretary, for capturing such a comprehensive record of the meeting for these minutes.

So, grab a coffee or perhaps a glass of wine, and enjoy the read.

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to reply to this email.

Many thanks &
Kind regards

Mike McNamara
Chair – WATA Committee

WATA Monthly Meeting – Monday 20th April – Sustainable Growing

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Hi all,

Our Association’s first monthly meeting of 2026 will be held at the Oakwood Centre in Woodley on Monday 20 April at 7:30pm.

We will begin with a short update on allotment business, followed by a talk by Krishna Neupane, a member of the Integrated Research and Development Centre (IRDC) in Berkshire. The IRDC works with the University of Reading on growing produce sustainably.

Some of their aims include evaluating plant variety performance and testing whether promoted varieties perform well in real-world or specific conditions. They also focus on understanding environmental interactions—recognising that what works in the lab does not always work in the field. Their work also involves trialling products and practices under natural variables such as rainfall, temperature, soil types, pest pressures, and farm management styles.

Krishna is one of several Nepalese plot tenants at our allotment site, and I am sure this will be a very interesting presentation.

The talk will last approximately 45 minutes. We look forward to seeing you all at our first meeting of 2026.

Many thanks &
Kind regards

Mike McNamara
Chair – WATA Committee

Update – Onsite Plastic Recycling Ending soon.

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As you will all know, the Committee has been running aa number of on-site recycling schemes over the past few months in its efforts to remove as much rubbish as possible from across all allotment plots and improve the overall appearance of the site.

This has been quite successful to date, with collections of recycled metal taking place last month and two-ton bags of recycled glass collected this week. The Committee also continues to carry out managed bonfires on Wednesday mornings, and tenants can still deposit rubble on the existing pile by the front gate.

However, due to the overwhelming success of the recycled plastic collection — and the presence of some unauthorised ‘fly-tipping’ — this pile (see image below) has now become unmanageable and too large for the Committee to deal with. It will therefore be cleared by contractors within 3–5 working days from Monday 13th April.

Once the recycled plastic has been cleared off-site, there will be no further plastic recycling carried out by the Committee at the main gate. Recycled plastic of any kind will have to be disposed of off-site by plot tenants or via skips when they are available on-site later in the year. A new CCTV camera will be installed to monitor the recycling area.

We will continue with metal and glass recycling. Weekly Wednesday bonfires will also continue until the end of April, after which all bonfires across the allotment site will be suspended until autumn 2026. Tenants will still be able to place rubble and debris onto the rubble pile by the front gate.

The Committee believes that most of the plastic requiring removal is already in the pile by the front gate. However, if you still have any plastic on your plot, you have a short window of opportunity to move it to the front gate area for final disposal. The clock is ticking!

Please remember that plot inspections will resume at the beginning of May 2026, in line with the new Council Inspection Policy now in force.

If you have any questions about this notice or any other aspects of the Committee’s recycling schemes, we will be happy to assist.

Many thanks &
Kind regards

Mike McNamara
Chair – WATA Committee