Chamber and committees

Ian, do you want to come in?

You have touched on the main barriers, and we will want to explore that area a bit more. We are beginning to bring out those issues. Clearly, allotments provide a lot of benefits for people. It is not just about food; in our session last week, we touched on the benefits for mental health and wellbeing. The conversation this morning has shown that cost seems to be the main barrier. Is identifying sites also an issue?

Good morning, and welcome to the 18th meeting in 2022 of the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee. We have received apologies from Willie Coffey, Annie Wells and Mark Griffin. I ask all members and witnesses to ensure that their mobile phones are on silent and that all other notifications are turned off during the meeting.

The first item on our agenda is to decide whether to take items 3 and 4 in private. Do members agree to take those items in private?

Members indicated agreement.

I had been thinking, “Okay, there’s a strategy, but what does it look like on the ground?”, but one of the things that I gleaned from your response and which it is great to hear is that you have a food growing strategy implementation group. In other words, the strategy is not just sitting in some digital dusty cupboard but is having an impact on the ground.

Marina, how is your food growing strategy going?

Thank you, Marina. When I visited Hope Kitchen, I was taken to see that fantastic garden. What those people are doing there is absolutely incredible.

Going back to your comment about the need to update the food strategy, I would just mention the Good Food Nation (Scotland) Bill, which is going through Parliament at the moment and will require local authorities to put in place good food nation plans. At some point, some thought will need to be given to how the food growing strategies and the plans work together. Sandy, would you like to talk about your perspective from the allotment side of things and how you got involved with the Glasgow city’s food growing strategy, if there is one?

Is £138.50 more than is needed? Can you put any of that towards new plots, or does it pretty much cover the maintenance?

Absolutely. It is exciting times for all manners of local growing. We also have the Good Food Nation (Scotland) Bill, which needs to fit together with all the local food strategies.

Wayne Priestley wants to come in.

Thank you very much. Nobody else wants to come in on planning. Paul, do you have any comments about planning?

That brings us to the end of our questions and what has been a very useful discussion. I think that one of the things that has come out of this and the earlier session is the question of how we get people started younger on this sort of activity and how we hardwire it into the education system. What I am hearing is that, at the moment, people are faced with a large plot and do not know what to do with it; however, they still have that impulse and know that it is something that could bring them benefit. If we could get that going in schools, things might become more consistent. I know from my work in the past that a particular challenge is the summer holidays, when suddenly there is nobody to water the vegetable plot at peak growing period.

I thank the witnesses for joining us this morning and their very useful evidence. As that was the last item in public on our agenda today, I close this part of the meeting.

Thanks for that clarity.

Paul, do you have a bigger-picture sense of the cost of allotments?