Please click here to open the Schools Food Growing Project Questionnaire
Click here for Information Resources and click here for Funding Sources for new Community Food Growing Groups
Click here to see a sample constitution
Click here to see a sample site rules
Click here to see a sample tenancy agreement
Click here to read A Guide to Allotments and Planning Law
Click here to read the Schools Food Growing Project End Report
Click here to see the CFG Newsletters
West Lancs Community Food Growing Project
The West Lancs Community Food Growing Project aims to get more people involved in growing their own food and eating more healthily. We are working with local communities and schools to set up community food growing initiatives and providing help in finding the land (and funds) that might be needed. This project, run by West Lancs Council for Voluntary Service (CVS), is co-funded by the NHS Central Lancashire and the West Lancashire Local Strategic Partnership, and will run up until Sept 2013. Additional funding was provided by the County Council’s Extended Schools Service and the Red Apple Community Trust Ltd to provide raised beds and training for 18 schools in the West Lancashire area to set up their own school food growing projects.
Allotment Provision in West Lancashire
The project was started after a study found that West Lancashire was very poorly served by the provision of allotments, with the Borough only having 2.5 plots per 1000 households against a national average of 15 plots per 1000 households. The report, commissioned by NHS Central Lancashire and carried out by the Wildlife Trust in 2009, also found that there were waiting lists in most areas and particularly for allotments in the Skelmersdale area (where there are over 100 names on the waiting list).
By working with local communities since 2009, the project has already helped to more than double the existing number of allotments - creating 118 new plots on 4 new sites
Schools Programme
By the end of 2010, 18 schools in West Lancashire were provided with help to set up their own community food growing projects. The work was led by the Red Apple Community Trust, with part funding provided by the County Council’s Extended Schools Service. Each school also received training in the technicalities involved in setting up and running their project. Since then, the Community Food Project has been working with 5 schools in the most deprived areas of Skelmersdale to provide extra help in their gardening projects through our School Support Worker. The work has been extended to a further 7 schools for 2012-13.
Small Grant Fund
The Community Food Growing Project had a small amount of grant money provided by NHS Central Lancashire to promote health and well-being to use for ‘implementation activities’ at community sites. This money was used to provide small grants to groups wanting to set up new allotment / community food growing projects or to those already running sites - to help them encourage more people to get involved in growing their own food and / or make their sites more productive. This grant fund has now closed, but for more information on funding allotment projects, see 'Funding Sources' above.
For the latest information on Community Food Growing activities, please see the CFG newsletters (above).
