Tag Archives: allotments

Growing opportunities: the multiple benefits of community gardens

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Today sees the start of Community Garden Week 2023. Across the UK, communities will be celebrating the many and varied types of community gardens, from children’s and neighbourhood gardens to therapy gardens and allotments.

The benefits of community gardens are almost endless. Evidence suggests that spending time outdoors in green spaces has positive effects on mental and physical health. Community gardens are also social spaces, bringing volunteers from different backgrounds together, which can reduce loneliness and help people of all ages learn more about nature. Community gardens have numerous positive environmental impacts, including improvements to air, soil and water, as well as increasing the biodiversity of plants and animals.

Strong roots, vital functions

Community gardens have their roots in agrarian societies dating back thousands of years. Later, as people moved into cities, many of them transformed plots of urban land into green spaces. These have been especially important for growing food in times of crisis. During World War II, the government’s “Dig For Victory” campaign transformed Britain from a food importer to a largely self-sufficient economy. By the end of the war, 75% of food was homegrown and there were 1.4 million allotments across the country.

During the post-war years, the UK’s reliance on food imports has risen, and by 2020 almost half of our food came from overseas. At the same time, supermarkets have overtaken shops selling local produce, and there has been a steep rise in consumption of processed foods, with subsequent impacts on the nation’s health.

Back to the land

But in recent years, things have started to change. The Covid-19 pandemic underlined the value of green spaces for improving our health and wellbeing. In addition, greater attention to healthy eating, environmental protection and rising food costs has attracted more people to the idea of growing their own fruit and vegetables, herbs and flowers.

Governments have taken note of these trends, and at national and local levels they have introduced measures aiming to make it easier to establish community gardens. One such example is the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act. Passed by the Scottish Parliament in 2015, the aim of this law is to support communities in doing things for themselves. Part 9 of the Act concerns increasing the accessibility of the land to those who wish to grow their own food.

The Act requires every Scottish local authority to prepare and publish its own food growing strategy. These strategies identify land for allotments and other community growing and describe how the authority will meet demand. While preparing their strategies, local authorities have consulted a wide range of stakeholders, including allotment associations, community councils, current allotment holders and existing community gardens.

Planning departments need to be involved in the preparation of food growing strategies, and will also require consultation about consents for community garden projects. But there is a clear shift towards official encouragement of community growing. The Scottish Government’s most recent National Planning Framework specifically mentions the importance of land for community food growing as an integral part of placemaking.

Food Growing Strategies: diverse ideas in action

The food growing strategies published so far demonstrate that Scotland’s local authorities have enthusiastically embraced the responsibilities placed upon them by the Community Empowerment Act.

Scottish Borders Council’s Food Growing Strategy includes ideas on getting started in growing activities, guidance on available support and information about existing community gardens and orchards in the region. It also features case studies of successful community gardens, including the Greenhouse Project in Galashiels, which provides home-grown produce for food parcels distributed to local families. The project also provides live cookery classes for children and recipe bags to support home cooking and healthier meals.

Argyll and Bute Council’s Food Growing Strategy features examples of good practice, including a case study of the Kyles Allotment Group, which was set up after the community purchased Acharossan Forest. The group rents plots to local people who grow a variety of fruit and vegetables, and there is also a community orchard.

Falkirk Council’s Food Growing Strategy explains how the council plans to increase space for allotments and community growing, including using some of the 632 parks and open spaces across the area for new growing sites.

The preparations for Glasgow’s Food Growing Strategy included a series of community engagement meetings across the city at which people were asked to identify any potential growing sites in their area. As a result, the strategy provides a map of existing and potential allotment sites in Glasgow.

Growing pains

The increasing popularity of home-grown food has underlined the shortage of growing spaces. Last year, local authorities in Scotland reported high numbers of people were waiting for an allotment. In Edinburgh, the figure was 2,637, with a similar number in Glasgow. In some council areas the waiting list dated back 10 years.

In response to the significant demand for allotments, the Scottish Parliament’s Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee launched an inquiry to scrutinise the delivery of local authorities’ responsibilities concerning community growing under the Community Empowerment Act. The Committee published its findings in 2022.

Among the challenges identified by the inquiry was the difficulty in gaining access to land for growing. Some witnesses giving evidence to the Committee expressed frustration about large amounts of vacant land that had the potential as growing spaces being unused by developers. The Committee also repeatedly heard that limited resources in planning departments were holding up applications for new allotments.

Among its recommendations, the Committee suggested that the Scottish Government might explore whether the provisions of Part 9 of the Community Empowerment Act could be extended beyond local authority owned allotments to other sites, such as those offered by the NHS, or to private allotment sites.

Beyond allotments: community growing opportunities

The shortage of allotments doesn’t mean people can’t get involved. Volunteering websites advertise numerous opportunities to join community garden projects. While previous experience is welcomed, most community gardens are just happy to receive help of any kind. And for the volunteers, enjoying the fresh air, meeting new people and learning new skills are just some of the rewards of taking part.

Food poverty, climate change, health inequalities and social isolation are among the big challenges of our age. No-one is suggesting that community growing projects can solve these problems on their own. But in their own modest way, community gardens are improving the lives of individuals, enriching communities and doing their bit for the planet.

Photo by Elaine Casap on Unsplash

Further reading: more from The Knowledge Exchange blog on green spaces

Bees and butterflies are under threat from urbanisation: here’s how city-dwellers can help

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Butterflies and flowers

Image: All-a-flutter. Shutterstock.

This guest blog was written by Katherine Baldock, NERC Knowledge Exchange Fellow at the University of Bristol.

Pollinators such as bees, hoverflies and butterflies, are responsible for the reproduction of many flowering plants and help to produce more than three quarters of the world’s crop species. Globally, the value of the services provided by pollinators is estimated at between US$235 billion and US$577 billion.

It’s alarming, then, that pollinators are under threat from factors including more intense farming, climate change, disease and changing land use, such as urbanisation. Yet recent studies have suggested that urban areas could actually be beneficial, at least for some pollinators, as higher numbers of bee species have been recorded in UK towns and cities, compared with neighbouring farmland.

To find out which parts of towns and cities are better for bees and other pollinators, our research team carried out fieldwork in nine different types of land in four UK cities: Bristol, Reading, Leeds and Edinburgh.

An easy win

Urban areas are a complex mosaic of different land uses and habitats. We surveyed pollinators in allotments (also known as community gardens), cemeteries and churchyards, residential gardens, public parks, other green spaces (such as playing fields), nature reserves, road verges, pavements and man-made surfaces such as car parks or industrial estates.

Our results suggest that allotments are good places for bees and other pollinating insects, and that creating more allotments will benefit the pollinators in towns and cities. Allotments are beneficial for human health and well-being, and also help boost local food production.

In the UK, there are waiting lists for allotments in many areas, so local authorities and urban planners need to recognise that creating more allotment sites is a winning move, which will benefit people, pollinators and sustainable food production.

Good tips for green thumbs

We also recorded high numbers of pollinating insects in gardens. Residential gardens made up between a quarter and a third of the total area of the four cities we sampled, so they’re really a crucial habitat for bees and other pollinators in cities. That’s why urban planners and developers need to create new housing developments with gardens.

But it’s not just the quantity of gardens that matters, it’s the quality, too. And there’s a lot that residents can do to ensure their gardens provide a good environment for pollinators.

Rather than paving, decking and neatly mown lawns, gardeners need to be planting flowers, shrubs and bushes that are good for pollinators. Choose plants that have plenty of pollen and nectar that is accessible to pollinators, and aim to have flowers throughout the year to provide a constant supply of food. Our research suggests that borage and lavender are particularly attractive for pollinators.

Often plants and seeds in garden centres are labelled with pollinator logos to help gardeners choose suitable varieties – although a recent study found that that ornamental plants on sale can contain pesticides that are harmful to pollinators, so gardeners should check this with retailers before buying.

Weeds are important too; our results suggest that dandelions, buttercups and brambles are important flowers for pollinators. So create more space for pollinators by mowing less often to allow flowers to grow, and leaving weedy corners, since undisturbed areas make good nesting sites.

An urban refuge

Parks, road verges and other green spaces make up around a third of cities, however our study found that they contain far fewer pollinators than gardens. Our results suggest that increasing the numbers of flowers in these areas, potentially by mowing less often, could have a real benefit for pollinators (and save money). There are already several initiatives underway to encourage local authorities to mow less often.

Ensuring there are healthy populations of pollinators will benefit the native plants and ecosystems in urban areas, as well as anyone who is growing food in their garden or allotment. Towns and cities could act as important refuges for pollinators in the wider landscape, especially since agricultural areas can be limited in terms of the habitat they provide.

It’s crucial for local authorities, urban planners, gardeners and land managers to do their bit to improve the way towns and cities are managed for pollinators. National pollinator strategies already exist for several countries, and local pollinator strategies and action plans are helping to bring together the key stakeholders in cities. Wider adoption of this type of united approach will help to improve towns and cities for both the people and pollinators that live there.The Conversation

Guest blog written by Katherine Baldock, NERC Knowledge Exchange Fellow, University of Bristol. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

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Going green together: regeneration through shared spaces

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Allotment holders in the Wirral

Participants in the Green Together project in the Wirral. Copyright Riverside and used with permission.

by James Carson

Good housing isn’t just about good houses. Residents of all ages need local spaces that are safe, and accessible, for leisure, to socialise, or to enjoy the health and wellbeing benefits provided by the natural environment.

Well-designed local spaces promote social cohesion, bring communities together and reduce anti-social behaviour.  Housing associations already understand this: a 2011 good practice guide to green spaces from the National Housing Federation and Neighbourhoods Green (a partnership promoting  open spaces for residents of social housing) reported that £41.5m was invested annually by housing associations in England to improve shared spaces in neighbourhoods. At the launch of the guide, Nicola Wheeler, Neighbourhoods Green project coordinator, highlighted some of the other benefits of green spaces:

“Local open spaces provide volunteering and employment opportunities, facilitate civic action and mitigate the effects of climate change.”

Neighbourhoods Green has also been working on a project with social housing associations and other partners in the Midlands. The Birmingham Active Neighbourhoods initiative is exploring how increased participation in housing green space can contribute to improved health outcomes for local people.

Another ambitious shared spaces project has brought together three of the UK’s largest housing groups: the Riverside Group; Places for People; and Peabody. Supported by a £15.6 million grant from the Big Lottery Fund, Green Spaces for People has transformed poor quality open spaces into well-designed areas for local people to enjoy. Projects include the introduction of parks and community gardens, as well as the creation of sports facilities, play areas, wildlife habitats, sensory gardens and green social enterprises. The aim of the five-year project has been not only to physically transform over 70 neighbourhoods around England, but to improve the quality of life for their residents.

One of the Green Spaces for People projects was “Steps to Sustainability”, delivered by the Riverside Group and its Merseyside partner Lairdside Communities Together between 2008 and 2013. The project has been generating a number of environmental improvements in the Tranmere/Rock Ferry area, which is home to 10,500 people. Once a thriving shipbuilding community, it suffered a body blow in 2001 with the closure of the Cammel Laird shipyard, from which employment in the area has yet to recover.

The Green Together project aimed to redevelop the area and to rekindle the community’s sense of pride in its surroundings through a number of different strands:

  • Green Together Schools (eco gardens created at nine schools across the area as well as the launch of a junior neighbourhood warden initiative);
  • Green Together Neighbourhoods  (new green spaces, allotments brought back into use, and a range of youth engagement activities to improve the environment);
  • Green Together Food (a food co-op run by the community as well as a healthy eating initiative);
  • Green Together Services (focusing on the delivery of the overall project as well as exploring opportunities to create social enterprises where local people run their own environmental projects).

As with other successful regeneration projects, Green Together put local residents at the heart of the planning process. Volunteers living in the area helped to guide and monitor the project and to develop skills so that local people can continue to run the projects they have helped to create.

 

The Idox Information Service has a wealth of research reports, articles, case studies and evaluations on community engagement and regeneration. Items we’ve recently summarised for our database include:

Edible estates: a good practice guide to food growing for social landlords

Space to grow (sustainable regeneration), IN Holyrood, No 322 7 Jul 2014, pp63-64

Summerfield Eco Village, Birmingham: a leading sustainable community (Cities in Action case study)

Tree testament, IN Horticulture Week, 13 Jul 2012, pp22-23

Gallowgate redux (sustainable urban form in Glasgow’s East End), IN Urban Design, No 122 Spring 2012, pp36-37

Catalyst for change (green spaces and social housing estates), IN Green Places, No 81 Feb 2012, pp36-39

Green investment (investment in green space by a housing association), IN Horticulture Week, 2 Sep 2011, pp18-19

Community gains (green space improvement), IN Horticulture Week, 18 Mar 2011, pp20-21

Weed ’em and reap (improving open spaces), IN Repairs and Maintenance (Inside Housing Supplement), Jan 2011, pp14-15,17

It’s Craigmillar time, IN Prospect, No 132 Autumn 2008, pp20-21,23

Urbanism (shared spaces), IN Prospect, No 128 Autumn 2007, pp59,61

N.B. Abstracts and full text access to subscription journal articles are only available to members of the Idox Information Service. For more information on the service, click here.