50 signatures reached
To: Wandsworth Council
Support a Right to Grow in Wandsworth
We are calling on Wandsworth Council to commit to the Right to Grow.
Why is this important?
Wandsworth Council should also:
- Identify all council owned land suitable for community cultivation.
- Make this land available for cultivation by a simple licence to community organisations at no cost.
- Consider community food growing on sites awaiting development for other uses on a fixed term basis.
- Adopt the Right to Grow motion and support the Incredible Edible campaign for a national right to grow.
We know we can transform the lives of people in Wandsworth for the better by actively growing food together in our neighbourhoods, as part of building our resilience in a changing world. The biggest obstacle to more local food growing is the lack of available land close to people’s homes.
All around Wandsworth, small parcels of public land are being left unloved, costing taxpayers money to maintain while giving nothing back to the community in return. Community food-growing projects such as Fishponds, Transition Town Tooting Community Gardens, Paradise Cooperative and Bramford Community Gardens, as well as projects that have created havens for wildlife in built-up areas, have shown that with a little TLC these parcels of land can be turned into something far more valuable. In the middle of the cost-of-living crisis, unlocking access to local healthy food could be a lifeline for many communities, offering practical hope for everyone.
We think it should be easy for communities to identify this unused public land, and apply for free, straight-forward leases to take on the care of the land. That’s why we are calling on you to give the citizens of Wandsworth a Right to Grow.
Transforming space in urban locations for food growing creates neighbourhoods which are cooler in summer, less polluted, better for our mental and physical health, better for wildlife and encourages local food spend. And, because many of these actions are about giving power to people to shape their community, they turn out to be more sociable and more connected places.
All around Wandsworth, small parcels of public land are being left unloved, costing taxpayers money to maintain while giving nothing back to the community in return. Community food-growing projects such as Fishponds, Transition Town Tooting Community Gardens, Paradise Cooperative and Bramford Community Gardens, as well as projects that have created havens for wildlife in built-up areas, have shown that with a little TLC these parcels of land can be turned into something far more valuable. In the middle of the cost-of-living crisis, unlocking access to local healthy food could be a lifeline for many communities, offering practical hope for everyone.
We think it should be easy for communities to identify this unused public land, and apply for free, straight-forward leases to take on the care of the land. That’s why we are calling on you to give the citizens of Wandsworth a Right to Grow.
Transforming space in urban locations for food growing creates neighbourhoods which are cooler in summer, less polluted, better for our mental and physical health, better for wildlife and encourages local food spend. And, because many of these actions are about giving power to people to shape their community, they turn out to be more sociable and more connected places.
