RHS Space to Grow report highlights need for a Right to Grow

A new report from the RHS has highlighted that over 14 million people in the UK want to get involved in community gardening, and that there are still too many barriers stopping people from doing so. 

 

The report, aimed at government and organisations working in the community gardening space, offers clear, practical recommendations to help community gardening thrive and overcome the hurdles it faces. It demonstrates how a well-supported community gardening movement can improve health and wellbeing, unify communities, help grow nutritious and healthy food, support nature and biodiversity and reduce isolation, loneliness and division.

The report offers a set of recommendations for organisations, national government, local government and funders to help meet the demand – and opportunities – for more community gardening. 

Under recommendations for local government the report includes:

“ Use the Right to Grow to deliver against local policy priorities. Incredible Edible’s Right to Grow campaign urges local authorities to make it easier to identify and access public land suitable for community growing or wildlife projects. It also calls for a simpler process for groups to secure free leases to cultivate the land, and for those groups to have the opportunity to bid if the land is put up for sale. Right to Grow offers a tangible opportunity for local authorities to deliver on their policy priorities in areas such as wellbeing and social cohesion by supporting local people to grow in their communities. In addition, by enabling community groups to take over underused public spaces, councils could save maintenance costs – which could be repurposed to directly support community growing. 

The Right to Grow campaign has captured national political attention and continues to build momentum at a local level, with six local authorities adopting Right to Grow to date – including Hull and Bury. The more local authorities that adopt Right to Grow, the more barriers will be dismantled for community growers trying to access land and the more councils will be able to utilise the power of the community gardening movement to help them deliver their policy priorities.” 

You can read the full report here.