Encourage your local planning authority to produce additional guidance on a good food environment. This could be on providing space for food growing or on creating a healthy food environment.
In this section we will look at the opportunity to provide developers with more detailed information on creating a healthy food environment.
Guidance could either be published by the local planning authority or, an alternative approach is for your food growing network to draft an information leaflet that developers could use. Discuss the options with your authority; they may offer to print and distribute your leaflet if they do not have the resources to publish formal guidance.
If this is all new to you we suggest you go to the Getting started page first.
When additional guidance might be an option
- When places are undergoing change, when new areas of housing are proposed, when regeneration is taking place,
- Where open space is in short supply, or
- Where there are health inequalities.
Planning authorities often publish Supplementary Planning Documents (SPD). Supplementary planning documents add further detail to the policies in the Local Plan. They can be used to provide further guidance for development on specific sites. They might be used to explain a particular local plan policy issues such as sustainable design, climate change, parks and open spaces / Green Infrastructure. SPDs have to be produced following a formal procedure. The extent to which a planning application has taken notice of the supplementary planning documents is relevant in making planning decisions. This means that developers should have taken the guidance into account before submitting their planning application.
What role could you play
The government advises that any additional planning documents should only be used where clearly justified. Supplementary planning documents should be used where they can help applicants make successful applications or aid infrastructure delivery. They should not be used to add unnecessarily to the financial burdens on development. This means that you should make your case for including community food growing space in new development just as if you were responding to a draft local plan. Your aim would be:
- To encourage landscape architects to include community food growing spaces and edible planting in their designs, and
- To ensure the quality and quantity of open space provided as part of a development proposal will meet the varied needs of future occupants.
Ask planning officers if any guidance is to be prepared or if it would be useful. You could offer to write up case studies of local spaces to give developers reassurance.
Evidence
- Does any of the published evidence already include food growing?
- What evidence of need and opportunities can you draw on?
- Have any community food growing spaces been provided in local new development recently?
Examples
Guidance could either be stand alone or included alongside other relevant topics.
Food growing and development planning
The Brighton and Hove “Food Growing and Development Planning Advice Note” 2020 is an exemplar. The Council and the local food partnership developed it jointly with the aim that their work could be shared by other councils rather than each council having to duplicate. It has the status of a non statutory advice note. Nevertheless it is actively promoted and is successful.
Residential design
They urge every opportunity should be taken to create spaces small and large for planting and growing. This could be on an individual basis or collective shared arrangement such a micro allotments in a residential context.
Following the adoption of Calderdale's Local Plan in 2023, a suite of Supplementary Planning Documents has been published. Those for Garden Communities masterplans and design codes and the Placemaking and Design Guide provide a great deal ofdetail fordevelopers on the expectation for newdevelopment toincorporate food growing.
Health
Comprehensive guidance on meeting local plan policies for health is in Hull's 2021 SPD 14: Healthy Places, Healthy People.
A section tied into local plan policies covers food and healthy choices. They are clear the planning system has a role to play in supporting opportunities for communities to access a wider range of healthier food production sources (such as local food growing spaces and allotments) and food retail to be able to make better consumer choices. They ask for new residential development to have dining space which can accommodate a table to encourage families to eat together and for space to sort, prepare and cook home-made food.
The Blackburn with Darwen Local Plan was adopted on the 25 January 2024. The Lancashire district experiences significantly higher than average levels of poor health among its population. Their Core Policy 3 (CP3): Health and Well-being states new development will be required to consider the local food environment, including access to local food shops and integration of community food growing. A detailed development management policy covers hot food takeaways and healthy food environments.
A Planning for Health Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) was adopted by the Council in April 2016. The Council will eventually update this SPD now the new local plan has been updated and following their experience of being a Healthier Place, Healthier Future (HPHF) Childhood Obesity Trailblazer
In 2015, the Council invited Blackburn Sustainable Food Network to contribute to the scope of the SPD and to emerging drafts. The council responded positively to this input and included a section on allotments and community food growing spaces, recognising “growing your own food can contribute towards healthy eating that would ultimately improve the health of the borough’s residents”.
Another lesson can be drawn from this SPD. At the end of the document, the consultation responses are summarised, including those from two large fast food chains. Their comments are often repeated in response to local plan policies. In this case, the council had done their research and stood firm.
Other examples of hot food takeaway policies can be seen in Sustain's publication "Hot Food Takeaways: Planning a route to healthier communities".
Sustainable design and construction
The adopted 2018 Cambridge and South Cambridgeshire Local Plans contain a suite of policies which will help to ensure that new development in the area reduces its environmental impact. The benefits of including food growing spaces in the urban extensions is recognised. Food growing is covered in the Greater Cambridge Sustainable Design and Construction SPD adopted in 2020.
Climate change
Leicester City Council formally adopted a Climate Change Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) in 2011 to expand on their Core Strategy. Developers are advised to ensure the size of gardens in housing developments allows for multiple uses, including for growing food. The Council acknowledges that providing useful outdoor spaces for more urban developments can be a challenge. They advise provision of plazas, allotment areas, courtyards and green/brown roofs to help to reduce the urban heat island and provide a mosaic of habitats for wildlife.
Help for communities
If you don’t have suitable up to date local policies go to the Plan Making section.
Go to Making It Happen section to monitor planning applications to make sure guidance is being used.
Planning Food Cities: Shaping the future of local areas to create a more sustainable and local food system.
