Twelve questions tenants ask most often, with the answers we give them at the office.

Anyone who lives within the ancient parish of Mansfield. Our 1970 scheme limits us to the parish boundary as it stood in 1916, and we have promised the Charity Commission, and ourselves, to keep faith with that. If you are unsure whether your address falls inside the parish, we will check the boundary map for you at the office.

On average about eighteen months from putting your name down to being offered a plot, taken across the last five years. Quarter-plots at Pelham Street tend to come up more often than full plots at Carr Bank, so let us know if you would consider both.

Annual rents for 2026 are £18 for a quarter-plot, £24 for a half-plot, and £32 for a full plot. Rents are reviewed at the February trustees' meeting each year and we publish the figures and our reasoning afterwards. The lower band has not risen in real terms since 2014.

No. We have inducted tenants from every conceivable starting point, including one who arrived having never grown a houseplant. The Welcome Pack you receive with your tenancy covers the basics, and there will always be a neighbour over the fence willing to advise on the next thing.

Yes. We are happy to issue a tenancy in two names where both parties live in the parish; if you want to add a working partner or family member to your tenancy, write to the office and we will amend the paperwork. We have moved, from 2026, to listing working partners on the tenancy as a matter of course.

Bees, yes, with a small bee-keeping form and the approval of the site committee. We have three apiaries on Carr Bank and a small training group runs every March. Chickens, sadly, no — the 1970 scheme does not permit livestock on the trust's plots, and we have not, after long discussion, found a way around that.

Yes. The Tool Library at Carr Bank holds 42 hand tools, free to borrow for any tenant. Long-handled spades, breast spades, dutch hoes, stirrup hoes, hand-forks, secateurs, loppers, mallets, and a turf-iron. Sign-out on the clipboard, sign-in when you return them, and please leave them in better order than you found them.

Carr Bank has main paths firm enough for a wheelchair in dry weather; the upper paths are uneven and slope gently. We have three raised beds on three plots reserved for tenants who cannot kneel, and we are looking to add a fourth in 2026. Pelham Street is fully step-free with mostly flat hard paths. Accessible toilets are at the parish hall, a five-minute walk from Carr Bank.

Yes, on a lead, and please pick up after them. We have a small bin by the front gate for dog waste only. Assistance dogs are welcome anywhere on either site, on or off lead as your handler chooses.

Write to the office, by post or by email. We can put your plot in 'sabbatical' status for up to six months at a time without losing your tenancy; longer absences are taken case by case at the next trustees' meeting. We never quietly take a plot back without writing to you first, and we will always speak to a neighbour to see how you are before we do anything.

No. The trust is not a religious organisation. We hire the upper room at Westgate Parish Hall on a Wednesday and Saturday morning because it is the right size and the right price, and the parish-hall caretaker has been very kind to us. Anyone of any faith or none is welcome as a tenant, a volunteer, or a trustee.

Write to our chair, John Carter, at the parish-hall office. He will reply by hand and put you in touch with a Mansfield solicitor we know, who can take you through the wording without charge. A small legacy makes a very large difference to a charity of our size.