London’s city planners need to move commercial growing higher up the policy agenda, promote food mapping and the integration of growing sites into housing, introduce greater flexibility into the use of greenbelt land and look at how to grow more fruit in the capital, a panel of so-called experts told the city assembly’s planning committee last week.
The London Assembly’s planning and housing committee heard from Rosie Boycott, chair of London Food; Tim Lang, professor of food policy, City University; Charles Mills, head of planning London at Knight Frank; NFU regional environment and land-use adviser John Archer; and Sebastian Mayfield of food and farming alliance Sustain. The committee will make a full report on the issue of growing food in London as part of its review of the mayor’s London plan later this year.
Lang was typically outspoken, telling the committee: “We have a crisis in the UK in that we only grow 10 per cent of the fruit we eat. My reflex for planners has got to be fruit, fruit, fruit. How can we grow more fruit? If that is not a priority then we are failing.”
Rosie Boycott said that commercial growing projects needed to be defined. She told the committee: “A lot of what we do is community growing. People are growing vegetables for themselves and occasionally there are surpluses. But what do we mean by commercial growing?… We have projects growing on the tops of buildings, in streets, railway and canal banks, parks and gardens.”
Lang added that there was no reason that the Thanet Earth project could not be replicated on rooftops in London, citing examples of successful roof-top projects in Amsterdam.
But Archer brought the debate back down to earth. He said: “There is a big difference between commercial and community growing. It is not just about the land, but about the distribution and packing operations required. Almost anything else gives a higher return on land, which is why growers have been diversifying away from growing to add value.”
And Mills warned that greater flexibility would be required in attitudes towards greenbelt land. “Growing sites will have to move up the policy agenda. We have a huge amount of greenbelt land, but it is about planning policy being flexible to allow it to be used for commercial buildings,” he said.
Education was also an important focus for the speakers and Mayfield told the committee: “Land without knowledge will mean growing is not sustainable over the long term. We need training sites, the promotion of food mapping and the integration of new growing sites into every new housing development.”
No comments yet