Council is just our equivalent of your local government. As we are a small country we have counties that have separate councils that dictates how the county's money is spent. The council are in charge of municipal buildings, local services, buses, libraries, schools etc.
C of E is the Church of England. I didn't think when typing that to be honest lol. It doesn't travel well really.
There is theft from the allotments, but not much. They usually have storage lockers/sheds on the land that the renter can place any valuables in and lock up for the night, but again as I just mentioned in the "providing for the table" thread we have a lot more separation from growing and killing to consuming. A thief usually wouldn't know a potato from his own arsehole.