Welcome to Get Growing Scotland’s prompt on news, resource and support for folk looking to turn land in their neighbourhood into productive places to grow.
Look out your window
Look out the window, at home, at work, wider – the bus or car window as you pass through your local area. Have you ever wondered about that unused or unloved patch of ground? How could your neighbourhood have more welcoming and productive places to be with nature and grow food close to home?
Across Scotland, communities are doing just that. They are taking on the land and developing spaces to grow, enjoy and care for nature, grow food, and connect with each other. They are improving their health and well-being as they improve their area and building skills, resilience, and positive ways to adapt locally to changeable weather and uncertainty. So, if you have ever wondered, please reach out.
Get Growing Scotland’s free help@ advisory service can help you with tailored one-to-one advice to get organised to access land and get growing nature-friendly food year-round. In 2023-2024, we directly supported 70 communities, partner organisations and local authorities on a wide range of topics, from support with community engagement to securing a lease.
Community Learning Exchange
The Community Learning Exchange is an exchange programme for communities to share information, experience and knowledge. This is invaluable to help your group clarify ideas, accelerate your development and share inspiration to keep going. If your group wants to learn from other communities about securing land and developing a community green space, we encourage you to apply. Every group applying for this funded programme via Get Growing Scotland gets a unique mix of advice, ideas, and connections. You may not even know what you are looking to learn; we can help you find the right groups to inspire and learn from, write a clear brief for your host, and endorse your application.
Local Development Plan
Help us, help you to safeguard and secure land for community-led, nature-friendly food growing in your local authority area. Many local authorities across Scotland are in the process of updating their LDPs- assessing local services and needs, opportunities for growth and determining how land in local authority areas will be developed or set aside for future use. These plans are moving to a 10-year update cycle. What will your community need over the next ten years, and how can you act NOW and be positively prepared for an uncertain future?
Local authorities are gathering evidence on peoples’ experiences in a local area, ideas for improvement, and what is required for the future. Currently, planners in Highland, South Lanarkshire and Midlothian and West Dunbartonshire and they want to hear from residents, so if you’d like to see more opportunities for community-led food growing, tell them! Perhaps you have a positive example to share, or you want land in developments to include dedicated land for mixed food growing models and associated infrastructure such as tunnels, water, tool storage. Your response will take circa 10 minutes. Read more here, and if you need help to respond, please contact us.
And finally
We are busy working with groups to deliver and share inspirational content to demonstrate what is possible and how we can all benefit when we work together sharing inspiration, lessons learned and ideas to go further. If you are group with a story to share, a landowner, or someone that has an idea you want to develop please contact us. We’d love to hear from you.
