Access to Land

One of the biggest challenges that we face in reaching our target of supporting 2,012 new food growing projects, by the end of 2012, is getting access to more land in London for community groups to grow on. 

Are you interested in finding some land for food growing?

Before you start please be aware that this is not an easy process and you will need to be patient.  We have provided some information below to help you in your quest: 

• Download Capital Growth's Finding a food-growing space (PDF) document for tips on finding land
• Click here for a list of borough councils who have signed up to Capital Growth.  If you live in one of these boroughs it may be that your council can offer you support in finding some land.   
• Register your details on the Landshare website.  Landshare aims to match people who want to grow with people who have land to offer.  Whilst we recommend registering your interest on the site the number of people who are looking for land tends to outnumber the people offering land

Are you trying to get agreement to use some land for food growing?

Capital Growth has been working with a number of organisations to try and provide some clarity around the legal process of getting access to land, typically for a meanwhile period, to grow food.

Many landowners and community groups have been able to establish agreements to enable community food growing.  This includes the borough councils that have signed up to Capital Growth. The following information is designed to help people create satsfactory agreements to aid both parties.

• With our help, Transport for London created a template lease agreement to enable community groups to use their unused land for food growing.  Click here to access the template lease and to find out how to apply to use TfL land that you may have identified.
• The National Heart Forum have been working with us to provide some guidance on land access, as part of their Healthy Places project.  We have summarised the key findings below:

Key points relating to legal issues of accessing land for community food growing:

Agricultural use of land is not classed as development and therefore does not need planning permission (although permission may be required for sheds and buildings).

If the grower or group can be said to have exclusive possession (nothing else happening on the site) and there is a fixed period of use and rent (this could be at a peppercorn rate), then no matter how the agreement is worded, within law they are likely to be seen as a tenant not licensee and enjoy the rights that are related to this.

A landowner can regain possession within 3 months, and at any time of the year, if they need the land back for the purposes of development, as long as this is defined in the agreement.  Other than this, according to the Allotment Act 1922, notice would need to be 12 months and would only be able to be given between October and April of each year.

There are certain situations where the Allotment Act does not apply, meaning that an agreement does not have to comply with the act:

If the land is more than ¼ acre,
If the land is mainly used for purposes other than fruit and veg,
If there is shared use between the landowner and the tenant; or
If the produce grown is going to be sold.

Click here to view National Heart Forum's full report, including further useful links.