Harvest festival marks chance for London food growers to scoop share of £50,000 and get gardening
Grants up to £1,000 available for new community food growing projects.
The Regent’s Park Harvest Festival family event this weekend offers inspiration for would-be growers
Pizzas with home-grown vegetables at seasonal harvest festival events are being used to inspire London’s green-fingered gardeners to apply for a share of £50,000 to grow their own food on unused land. The cash can be claimed by new community food growing projects as part of the Capital Growth food growing scheme, funded by the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson.
Would-be food growers who’d like to find out more about gardening before they apply for a small grant to get them started, can drop in to a special Harvest Festival celebration being held by Capital Growth and The Royal Parks at the Regent's Park allotment garden this Sunday (26 September - 10am-4pm). Visitors can sample fresh produce, including vegetable pizzas, get hints and tips from expert growers and there will be a range of free craft activities for children. The allotment garden, which opened in June this year, is a partnership project between Capital Growth, The Royal Parks and Capel Manor College. Capital Growth use the site to provide training for people with an interest in food growing opened as a centre of excellence for people with an interest in food growing in June this year. Nearly 170 people have attended courses to date, 500 visitors have dropped in to 10 open days and 16 hard-working volunteers have put in 500 hours on the site.
Groups can apply online (www.capitalgrowth.org/apply) from Monday 27 September until Monday November 8th 2010 for small grants of up to £1,000 from Capital Growth to help to turn underused land into a vegetable patch as well as practical support such as access to training, expert advice and discounted tools and seeds.
Capital Growth aims to create 2,012 new growing food spaces by the end of 2012. There are already 576 plots in a wide range of places including plots at schools, housing estates, homeless hostels, universities and even in skips. £200,000 in small grants have been awarded since the scheme was launched in November 2009 by the Mayor and London Food Link, helping to create 318 new plots to the total number of 561 growing spaces.
Mayor of London Boris Johnson said: ‘Capital Growth is giving green-fingered Londoners the chance to grow food to tremendous benefit. As well as helping people to save cash, it boosts community spirit and beautifies otherwise unloved and unused plots of land. For a limited period, people can apply for small grants to help kickstart their own plot adding to the thriving oases that are cropping up all around the capital.’
Rosie Boycott, Chair of London Food, who spearheads Capital Growth for the Mayor, said: ‘Harvest Festival is a good time of year to think about where our food comes from and even to step into the world of growing your own food. In additional to these small grants, Capital Growth team offers expert advice all year round to get communities off to the best start, as the hundreds of inspiring success stories show.’
Sarah Williams of London Food Link, who manage the project said: 'The team here at Capital Growth recognise the importance of small pots of funding to help get projects started. In addition to other support that we provide, such as training and network events, we have seen what a difference a few hundred pounds can make in transforming an unused space in to an urban food growing oasis.'
Support for Capital Growth is gathering pace and there are now twelve London boroughs committed to identifying suitable plots. Housing associations are also signing up to the scheme including Metropolitan Housing Trust London, Family Mosaic, L&Q and Affinity Sutton which manage more than 100,000 homes, many of them in the London area. More than 50 primary schools have been growing food this year as part of the recent schools competition organised by Capital Growth earlier this year. designed to help fuel a passion for ‘grow your own’ in pupils, parents and teachers alike whilst creating new or expanded plots.
On Saturday 25 September, Capital Growth plots across London will open as part of an 'Open Gardens Day' offering a great opportunity to visit your local community food-growing space. Find out what’s going on there, how you can pitch in and enjoy a day of activities and a chance to win special prizes, visit: www.capitalgrowth.org/training/opengardens/
ENDS
Notes to editors
Capital Growth is a partnership initiative between London Food Link, the Mayor of London Boris Johnson, and the Big Lottery's Local Food Fund. It is championed by the Chair of the London Food Board Rosie Boycott and aims to create 2012 new community food growing spaces across London by the end of 2012. Capital Growth offers practical help, grants training and support to groups wanting to establish community food growing projects as well as well as advice to landowners.
It is funded by the Mayor of London and by the Big Lottery's Local Food Fund. www.capitalgrowth.org
The Allotment Garden in The Regent’s Park is located next to the Park Office (NW1 4NR), on the corner of Chester Road and the Inner Circle. For a map of the park please visit: www.royalparks.org.uk/docs/park_maps/RegentsPark_English_Map.pdf
The 12 London boroughs that have signed up to Capital Growth are: Camden, Croydon, Greenwich, Haringey, Islington, Kensington and Chelsea, Lambeth, Lewisham, Sutton, Tower Hamlets, Wandsworth and Kingston Upon Thames.
