social enterprise

This article is provided courtesy of the news feed at http://www.newstartmag.co.uk/news

A land bank identifying areas available for community growing will be established in Wales.

The initiative is included in a new action plan to encourage people to grow their own food, whether it’s through community projects or their own gardens and allotments.

Wales Rural Observatory (WRO) will receive funding from the Welsh Assembly Government to work on the creation of a land bank.

‘There may be a large amount of land owned by the public, private and third sector in Wales which could be utilised for community growing. A land bank would aim to identify and classify this land,’ says the Community grown food action plan.

The land bank is expected to be in place in six to 12 months, with details of available plots put on a database that can be accessed by anyone interested in community growing.

WRO will contact public, private and third sector organisations and ask them to identify whether there is any land they would like to sell or lease.

It’s one of several ways the action plan proposes to highlight the social, economic and environmental benefits of community growing and make it easier to get involved.

Better ways to develop and spread knowledge and disseminate skills and training will be investigated along with the creation of community growing development officer posts to provide advice and support. A community growing resource pack will also be developed.

Ministers also want to look at the links between community-grown food and other policy areas such as the regeneration programme Communities First and the development of social enterprises.

Gaps in funding will be mapped to ensure projects are given the support they need.

The action plan has come partly in response to the growing popularity of community growing and the added pressure it’s bringing to already long allotment waiting lists.

The Federation of City Farms and Community Gardens, a charity covering the whole of the UK, has been working on setting up a community land bank for some time to help cope with what it describes as ‘the rapid rise in demand for land for local food growing’.

It has been holding discussions with private and public landowners to pilot the idea. The intention is for the land bank to act as an independent, not-for-profit agency which supports access to unused land for temporary or long-term ‘gardening use’.