Space to Grow

How the Right to Grow could help your community reap the benefits of locally produced food. 

Could unused council land become somewhere for communities to grow their own food? That’s the idea behind the community Right to Grow, a policy that makes it easier for local people to access suitable public land for food growing. At a time when the UK relies heavily on imported food, it could also help communities produce more food locally and build greater food resilience.

The UK imports around 40% of its food overall, but this figure jumps substantially when it comes to fruit and veg. The latest figures put vegetable imports at just under 50%, and fruit at a whopping 80%.  

The reasons behind this are complex, but whatever the cause, this reliance on foreign food puts us all at a far greater risk of shortages than a more self-sufficient nation. 

What is the community Right to Grow?

The majority of people in the UK live in towns and cities. Whilst some have access to a garden or outdoor space, many live in flats and apartments and have no space to grow food. 

Enter Incredible Edible. The movement, founded in Todmorden, Yorkshire, has now spread all over the world, and focuses on encouraging people to grow their own fresh fruit and veg anywhere where there is free space. Over the last few years, Incredible Edible has led the campaign for places around the UK to implement a community Right to Grow. 

The community Right to Grow is a policy designed to make it easier for people to access suitable council-owned land to grow food. So far adopted by Hull, Cumberland, St Albans, Southwark and several other councils, it creates a simpler mechanism through which local people can apply to use available public land for planting and growing produce.

Often, a local food partnership is involved with setting up the policy – working directly with the local council and food-related organisations to put the application process and mechanisms in place.  

Read more about food partnerships on our action page here. 

The benefits of a Right to Grow extend beyond producing more food locally. Making unused land available for community food growing can reduce maintenance requirements for councils, help people develop growing and horticultural skills, and create opportunities for neighbours to connect. It can also give people without their own gardens access to growing space and help more people understand where their food comes from.

How unused land can become community growing space

There are many projects that have taken advantage of disused space for food growing, without an “official” community Right to Grow. 

In London, Global Generation has been creating urban gardens on disused land since 2004. Working in particular with children and families, the charity is helping to improve access to fresh food, as well as teaching cooking and food preparation skills and supporting the confidence and mental health of participants. 

Manchester Urban Diggers are helping refugees and asylum seekers connect with new people and share their heritage through food, with the Stronger Roots project, hosted at an urban garden on a former bowling green. 

In Cornwall, Chyan is a community farm and permaculture project, which uses a formerly overgrown and unloved field to run growing projects including Roots and Seeds, a volunteer gardening group; and a Nature Playgroup, for families with young children. 

These projects show what communities can achieve with unused land, but they can require considerable time and determination to secure access and permission. A community Right to Grow creates a clearer route for doing this, usually through an application hosted by the local authority or food partnership, with a defined process from initial enquiry to implementation.

Learn how to bring the Right to Grow to your community

Carbon Copy is hosting a Community-to-Community Workshop where you can learn directly from those who have successfully implemented this kind of initiative. Hull Food Partnership was instrumental in establishing the community Right to Grow in Hull – the first place in the UK to implement this policy.

If you are involved with a food partnership, or a local group that would benefit from access to land for food growing, then this free online session on October 6, might be for you!  

Find out more and sign up.