A City Farm for Hull: A Feasibility Study
Federation of City Farms & Community Gardens December 2013
A City Farm for Hull: Feasibility Study
Contents
Executive Summary 2 1.0 Context ……………………………………………………………………………….. 3 2.0 Planning Issues and Requirements ……………………………………… 4 3.0 Realistic Estimates of Start-up Costs and ongoing revenue … 5 4.0 Potential Models of Delivery………………………………………………… 8 5.0 Potential Activities ………………………………………………………………. 10 6.0 Health and Safety Issues ……………………………………………………… 12 7.0 Legal Issues and Regulations...... 15 8.0 Other Resources Required …………………………………………………… 18 9.0 Potential Partners and Links to Complementary Activities ….. 19 10.0 Social, Economic and Environmental Benefits ……………………… 23 11.0 Risks and Risk Management ………………………………………………… 24 12.0 Potential Income Streams and Sources of External Funding .. 27 13.0 Learning from Elsewhere ...... 29 14.0 Stakeholder Views ………………………………………………………………. 31 15.0 Potential Customers/Service Users /visitors ………………………… 33 16.0 Sustainability Issues …………………………………………………………….. 34 17.0 Local Context ………………………………………………………………………. 36 18.0 Conclusions …………………………………………………………………………. 38 19.0 Recommendations ...... 40 Appendices 1. Record of Stakeholder Meetings ….……………………………………………………….. 41 2. Learning and design photographs …………………………………………………………. 49 3. References ……………………………………………………………………………………………. 54
Acknowledgements
Hull City Council for their ongoing support, Jerome Wittingham for his help providing IT support and ideas, North Bank Forum for their support with the consultation event and Richard Ralph from Architectural Design Partnership Ltd for his work on the Concept Drawings.
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Executive Summary
The study on creating a city farm for Hull shows that it is possible to create a mobile farm that can deliver the desired outcomes required as identified in the ‘Making Money Go Further’ consultation – which is a Hull City Council plan priority - whilst being flexible to land opportunities in the City of Hull. Key to the farms success will be its first location ensuring that the project is seen as truly valued as an important element of the City, and that the participants feel welcomed. All locations should be assessed for their territorial neutrality. Design plays an important role in the same way as location. In this respect, the key elements of the farm should be as high quality as possible with inspirational design ideas.
To engender ownership and future participation, where ever possible the community should be encouraged to take part in all aspects of the farm development and delivery through the construction of container architecture to constructing raised beds.
The Farm should be an independent body rather than a project delivered by a larger organisation to ensure it remains true to its objectives yet adaptable to opportunities. To provide stability, it should be supported by external exemplar farm projects that demonstrate synergies in vision and approach. The supporting farms should provide support guidance and mentoring to nurture the farm in its first years until it is fully established.
The farm must be set up to deliver a range of goods and services to create diverse income streams and look not just to grants to sustain itself. Further, the farm should look to the local business community to support its work.
There is a significant regulatory framework in which city farms operate. This should be seen as enabling rather than a burden and must be managed to the highest standard and given high priority to ensure that the best experience is had by all.
The city farm has tremendous potential to help build social cohesion, improve the site on which it is located, and through its accessibility and diversity of services, will act as a significant hub for city wide related activities, both social and environmental.
The Federation of City Farms and Community Gardens will continue to support this vision for a City Farm in Hull through its local contacts and centrally.
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1.0 Context
Through wide consultation with the local community on ‘Making Money Go Further’, Hull City Council has identified a number of needs that could be addressed through a city farm in the centre of Hull. A constraint to such a project is the availability of land. Following a meeting between the City Council and the Federation of City Farms and Community Gardens (FCFCG), arranged to discuss a potential for creating a city farm close to the centre of the City of Hull, an idea of a pop up or mobile farm project based on the ‘meanwhile’ concept was mooted as a solution to the lack of land available on a permanent basis. Some initial research was carried out by the FCFCG and its local contacts to identify similar projects where lessons could be learned to inform such a project. Following discussions with the City Council, a feasibility study was commissioned to consider in more detail how a pop up or mobile farm could work in the City of Hull based on the ‘meanwhile concept’.
This report presents the information gathered from research carried out in fulfilment of contractual requirements of the feasibility study identified above, provides conclusions and recommendations for further work to enable a City Farm based on Meanwhile use to be set up in Hull, but with the long term aim to find a permanent site.
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2.0 Planning Issues and Requirements
Information provided by the Hull City Council planning department indicate 5 key areas of Planning issues that need to be taken into consideration theses are:
2.1 Flood Risk Assessment – Hull is a low lying area at risk of inundation from the sea. Any proposed project would require a Flood Risk Assessment wherever it is situated. The Environment Agency are looking considering the project with a view to giving some preliminary advice –To Follow.
2.2 Transport Assessment – Currently, there is a road redevelopment scheme being investigated for the A63 near the Fruit Market. Any project near this redevelopment would need to be considered in the light of this project as it may impact on the site and on traffic around it. Contact with the City Council to check for Road schemes and their impact should be made for any site as a precaution.
2.3 A Highways assessment for Access and Parking will be required.
2.4 Public Right of Way (PROW) – Sites should be checked to discover any PROW that may cross them to ensure these are not compromised. Changing PROW is an expensive and time consuming business and the law protecting them is strong. It would be prudent to ensure that no infrastructure blocks a PROW and if the farm business plan is to include access by payment and a PROW also give access, the farm will not have the power to stop PROW users form accessing the farm free of charge.
2.5 Contaminated Land – Former industrial sites pose a risk through potential contamination of the ground; this issue is dealt with in other sections.
Planning Application - The Farm project would need planning permission.
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3.0 Realistic Estimates of Start-up Costs and ongoing revenue
There are pre-requisites to identifying realistic estimates of start-up and ongoing costs. These include confirmation of site location, completion of contaminated land assessment, chosen model of delivery, definitive list of activities for which the market needs to be assessed. In short, this information can only be fully defined when a site has been confirmed. However, it is possible to identify a range of estimates for different elements of infrastructure and staff salaries for similar projects that can help give an understanding of the costs that could be incurred.
3.1 Infrastructure – Buildings A city farm will need some form of building, whether it is simply a tool store and toilet facility, through to café, shop and multipurpose rooms for training, meetings, exhibitions etc. When considering the community needs identified through the Making Money go Further consultation documents and from discussions with council officers and councillors, it is clear that the city farm will need to have space for activities to engage and educate visitors/participants, and some form of trading facility to both provide an income and provide access to healthy food. As this approach is for ‘meanwhile’ use of vacant development sites, any built infrastructure will need to be constructed independently of the land on which it is situated. Having looked at other similar approaches elsewhere, it has been identified that containerised buildings would be suitable. These range from the very high specification container architecture down the most basic construction site office system. This form of building is gaining in both popularity and in innovation of design making it strong, flexible and good value for money, whilst creating a sense of modernity and high value. The quality of design and implementation is a reflection on the value placed on the people for who the project is designed for. This is no more clearly articulated in the Thomas Theorem ‘if men define situations as real, then they are real in the consequences’ (cited in Gross, 2007). If you want people to believe that they have value, then they must be show that they are valued. The project should aim to create space that looks and feels exciting to excite people. Porta- cabins and static caravans don’t do this, bespoke buildings are expensive, container architecture has a young but exciting pedigree to deliver this approach.
An indication of costs for a range of containerised buildings is given below.
The container café providing kitchen and server without seating at the National Railway Museum in York cost in the region of £35,000 for the structure and a further £35,000 for a high specification fit out including pizza ovens and ice cream parlour.
Container City in London have given an indicative price of £90-110 ft 2, this would equate to approximately £21,000 - £26,400 for a 30ft container converted with insulation, doors, windows and some electrical fittings
A standard 20ft ship container welfare unit, comprising canteen area with sink, worktop and water heater, WC with sink and water heater, drying room, 1000 litre fresh water tank and 1100 litre waste tank designed for use in the construction industry in the region of £8,500.
Café kitchen and seating area fit out will be dependent on size of kitchen and the food offer.
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Toilet facilities are an essential element and for which composting toilets could be an option. A twin cubicle compost toilet facility in the region of £3,500. Information on this approach is available at: http://ari.farmgarden.org.uk/resources/ari-factsheets-mainmenu-147 and http://ari.farmgarden.org.uk/resources/library/search-resources?q=compost+toilets
The FCFCG currently have a fieldworker’s road trip looking at members’ compost toilets.
A clean water supply will be required for hand washing and rain water harvesting for growing.
3.2 Infrastructure – Growing Environment In the same way that the buildings would need to be independent of the land, so too would be the growing environment. This approach is common such as street scene raised beds. In addition to this standard type approach, growing containers to improve access to disabled, children and the elderly also need to be considered. Some examples are given below:
• Green circle provide bespoke fibre glass raised beds designed with the elderly and disabled in mind at a cost in the region of £7,000 for a circle of nine units
• Complete 2m 3 raised beds designed for the High Street in the region of £1,500 each
• Compost available locally in the region of £40 m 3. Any soils brought in for the project must meet the standards required. Further details are referenced in Appendix 3.
3.3 Infrastructure – Power supply The cost of connection to mains services may be difficult and expensive. Power can be generated on site through renewable energy and standard mobile fossil fuel approaches. A renewable energy approach would benefit the project as it would add another element that could be promoted but has an additional cost associated. Example given below:
A solar PV system of 3.5 to 4kWp may cost around £7,000 to purchase and install.
A biomass generator called a Power Pallet producing up to 10kw of electricity from woodchip is available from the US for £19,000 and a 20kw system for £27-35,000 plus shipping in the region of £3,000; a small container will also be needed to house the generator, in the region of £2,000. A power pallet could be fuelled by wood chip produced from tree management operations carried out by the City Council.
Micro Anaerobic Digester.
Alternatively a 10kw diesel generator in the region of £6,000
Propane gas could be used to provide energy for cooking.
3.4 Ongoing Running Costs A minimum of one fte manager for a community supported farm project such as this could expect a salary in the region of £20 – 25,000. Job share should be considered for this post to improve resilience and improve call out, and holiday cover. Further on-costs would need included in to cover such a post. A key element of the mangers’ role should be to recruit and retain volunteers.
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A management budget for the farm would be dependent on a number of variables including the location, amount of infrastructure, security, the presence of livestock, type of energy system chosen, etc.
Depending on the model of delivery, additional staff may be required to run a café, shop and training events, look after the livestock in the absence of the farm manager. Staff for many of these activities may be bought in, for example licenced use of a café and or shop space and contractor bought in to deliver training and outreach work dependent on demand. However, a minimum of one additional part time member of staff would be required to cover a seven day rota. To deliver the desired outputs the project will need to offer outreach to sustain the linkages between community hubs in Hull and the farm hub for which part time or contract staff would be required
Further discussion on the impacts on both start-up and ongoing costs this in part 4 below.
It should be noted that, through working in partnership with local organisations, it may be possible to reduce the cost of off the shelf solutions. This could be achieved, for example, by designing community and educational activities to construct elements of the project infrastructure and securing financial sponsorship and support in kind.
Summary Table of major cost estimates above.
Item Estimate Building Container architecture approach per container £21 – 27,000 Bespoke disabled access raised beds (9 of) £7,000 Raised beds Standard Raised beds 1m x 2m each £1,500 Compost toilet Twin Cubicle £3 500 On site power Power pallet (10KW) £17,000 generations Solar PV (4kw) £7,000 Staff costs Farm managers Salary in the region of £20-25,000pa + on costs Other staff costs £ dependent on model Estimate of total basic capital costs irrespective of site: other costs such as fencing, security, pathways etc will be site-specific. £34-55,000
To this must be added the costs of a higher quality building with much greater educational and other facilities (c £200K), plus the other site- specific costs, stocking (plants and livestock) and first year staffing, training, website, newsletters,
insurance and community engagement activities, £450,000 the cost could reach as an aspiration:
Other resource needs identified in Part 8 below.
These costs are indicative of key component costs, are relevant at time of submission and do not constitute all requirements or delivery and installation costs. Full cost appraisal can only be identified when a site has been agreed and site related issues are taken into account.
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4.0 Potential Models of Delivery
This section presents some of the approaches to Urban Agriculture identified from visits to three UK growing projects and investigations into a number of other projects from the elsewhere in the UK and abroad. These approaches would be suitable to meanwhile use of land and have the potential to meet the local needs as identified in the City Councils ‘making money go further’ consultation. Specific examples highlighted below are Stalled Spaces (Glasgow); The Skip Garden (Kings Cross, London), Farmery (North Carolina, USA); Incredible Edible (Tormorden).
4.1 Stalled Spaces Stalled Spaces is a partnership approach between Glasgow City Council and Glasgow Housing Association to utilise vacant building sites in and around the city. The project provides grants, support, help and advice to local community groups that wish to enhance their local neighbourhood but creating community gardens and allotments. This approach is similar to other grant giving approaches. The partnership has identified an opportunity to improve community cohesion and whilst tackling urban degeneration, has advertised a themed grant scheme and supported grass root activity. The risk with such an approach, similar to other forms of short term capital funding is in maintaining the projects after key community volunteers who instigated the projects move on.
4.2 The Skip Garden The Skip Garden is a growing project situated within the hording of a major high rise residential development site in the centre of London. The project is run by Global Generation, a charity that gives young people opportunities to create a sustainable future. The garden is part-funded by the Big Lottery and the site and materials have been provided by The King’s Cross Partnership, BAM Nuttall, Carillion and Kier.
The garden uses local materials – and in this case that means building materials. So the gardens have been planted in upcycled skips, and the polytunnel was created using spare water pipes, scaffold netting and planks from the site.
The garden has moved some six times in just a few years as the development projects works its way around the site. The project’s success and popularity with the local community and construction staff, the developers are now interested to see if the project can be integrated in to the final scheme on a permanent basis. This acceptance of permanence should be a key long term outcome for this community farm in Hull
4.3 The Farmery The Farmery is a novel approach to reducing food miles and reconnecting people with food. It is designed to create an incredible shopping experience and innovative growing system from low cost ship containers and modular greenhouse components. It is a private enterprise, pick your own concept that could be adapted as a social project. Its sustainability is enhanced by growing high value crops such as salad and specialist mushrooms.
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4.4 Incredible Edible The Incredible Edible Todmorden project is an urban gardening project started in 2008 by Pamela Warhurst, Mary Clear and a group of like-minded people in Todmorden, West Yorkshire. The project aims bring people together and through actions around local food, help change behaviour toward the environment and build a kinder and more resilient world.
Incredible Edible at Todmordon has proved to be tremendous success in getting individuals and business in the town to start growing on any waste land or using containers to grow a selection of vegetables, salads and herbs. The novel approach of encouraging the residents ‘to help themselves’ also proved to be a success in creating ownership. It has now developed the brand ‘Incredible Edible’ with many cities adopting it worldwide.
Having started out as an unregistered grassroots project, Incredible edible has registered two companies with Companies House: Incredible Edible Todmorden Ltd to take forward work locally to Todmordon including the Aquaponics project, and Incredible Edible Ltd, an umbrella company, tasked with spreading the message, getting more towns to be incredible and running events
Aquaponics is a system that combines farming fish with Hydroponics, a plant growing system that uses nutrient rich water as the growing medium in place of soil. In Aquaponics the fish are farmed in the water used in the Hydroponics process. In combination, the two systems utilise each other’s waste creating a sustainable food production system.
The example given above show how a range of business models could be adopted to deliver a City Farm Project. However, given the comments in part 1 above and parts 9 and 15 below: the need to provide a location that raises aspiration; concerns voiced around territory and potential exclusion of groups due location or project ownership and areas of expertise, it would be appropriate to consider creating a new body, independent of existing organisations located in the City, to set up and run the city farm. In this way, not only would the farm be located in a neutral space it would be able to partner with any organisation willing to work with it to achieve the project aims and deliver services.
The business model chosen could be a charity, Co-op or Community Interest Company (CIC), each having its own advantages and disadvantages. A CIC may be the best approach in the first instance due to its low set up and administrative costs compared to the time taken to form a Charity. A CIC may also be preferred over a co-op due to its governance and decision making structures and processes to support the Farm in its first year or two, consideration should be given to working in partnership with an established organisation with close values, principles and a practical contribution to initially nurture this project with the ongoing support from the Federation of City farms and Community Gardens who have over 30 years of experience. An approach to an existing independent exemplar City Farm or Care Farm may be appropriate.
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5.0 Potential Activities
To increase resilience against financial risk, the farm should be set up to delivery commercial enterprises. These enterprises would then provide the activities around which education, training and development can take place. The list below identified key areas of enterprise
These enterprises can then be used to provide educational opportunities by involving participants in those enterprises. In some circumstances these activities may be paid for, a model for this approach can be seen operating in some care farms. Others may be through volunteering or supervision and transport paid for through grants. These activities could be tailored to deliver education, training and development on target issues. The matrix below shows the links between enterprise activity and target issue.
Growing produce
Enterprise
Activity
Target
Issue
Selling of Produceof Selling Fruit,& mushrooms veg meat eggs plants Café Trainingcourses Events BeeKeeping Health X X X X X X X
Nutrition X X X X X X X
Resilience X X X
Personal Finance. X X X X X X
Food awareness X X X X X X X
Sustainability X X X X X X X X
Environment X X X X X
Community X X X X X X X X Cohesion
Employability skills
Team working X X X X
Communication X X X X X X Skills
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Project X X X X X X X X Management
Responsibility X X X X X X X X X
Timekeeping X X X X X X
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6.0 Health and Safety Issues
City Farms pose complex Health and Safety issues. They provide access to many of the hazards of farming, one of the most hazardous occupations in the UK, to members of the public who are often very unfamiliar with such risks. City farms compound this problem as they often target vulnerable people who may be less risk aware. In addition to this miss- match of Hazards and Risk Perception, additional responsibilities to protect vulnerable people as part of wider Safe Guarding requirements needs to be addressed
6.1 Despite this need to carefully address health and safety issues, city farms flourish without major incident throughout the UK by having robust Health and Safety systems in place that thoroughly assess all risk and mitigate against the likelihood of harm occurring. These community farm facilities remain accessible since they first started in the early 1970s, for hundreds of thousands of people each year, in addition to the million plus visitors to rural farms, and the expanding number of farms within school grounds. Risk is manageable.
6.2 With respect to the proposed City Farm for Hull, we recommend a threefold Health and Safety systems approach. First, the site will require an initial Audit to identify existing Hazards and mitigation to reduce risk of Harm caused by their presence. Second, the Model of Delivery needs to be assessed to identify additional risks posed. Ordinarily these aspects would be considered together. However, as the proposal is to create a project that is moveable, it is appropriate to approach them separately so that the assessments can travel with the project. To carry out such assessments, not only will the project be taken in its local context but we recommend that knowledge and evidence from elsewhere, where similar delivery models have been adopted, is considered to ensure best practice. The third approach will be to assess each activity both in its own right considering its inherent risks (this assessment can also be informed by experience from elsewhere) and in its location/setting to identify the interplay between the activity, the specific location and other activities that may impact upon it.
6.3 It is recommended that once Risk Assessments are carried out, they will form part a Health and Safety System of Assessment and Review where reviews take place annually, after any significant change, after any serious incident or where quarterly inspections of accident and near miss records indicate an underlying cause for concern.
The following lists provide some specific examples of the Risk Assessments required for each of the three elements:
6.31 Site Health and Safety • Contaminated Land. As discussed above, the potential for disturbing buried contamination needs to be addressed • Slips, trips and falls • Assessment of existing structures, trees and adjacent buildings • Access during closed periods.
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6.32 Model of Delivering Health and Safety ● Container Architecture: Non-traditional approach to construction will require both architectural services and those of the manufacturer to ensure that the structures are safe and durable both in themselves and in location ● Growing Container Construction: Assessment will cover issues such as stability, particularly where trees will be grown, construction materials to avoid splinters or corrosion leading to chemical leaching in to skin or plant material that may be consumed ● Path Construction (if required): Assessed for Slips Trip and Falls ● Livestock: The presence of livestock introduces a range of substances hazardous to health for which appropriate COSHH assessments will be needed. Further to the presence of livestock their behaviour may also be a Hazard. Issues such as biting, butting and entrapment. Most livestock related hazards can be designed out with others dealt with through managing access and training ● Preparation and consumption of food and drink: Following normal Environmental Health approaches to the preparation and consumption of food and drink in a non-contact clean area within the farm environment, hazards can be designed out and risks reduced. HACCP process needs to be put in place for use of home grown produce in food preparation ● Soils: Provenance of soils to ensure appropriateness for the intended use and the use of livestock manures to supplement soils needs to be addressed ● Water harvesting: Assessment of water quality for use in growing if harvesting from local structures to prevent contamination.
6.33 Activities Health and Safety The following list provides an indication of the range and types of generic and specific Risk Assessments required. We recommend that the activity based Risk Assessment are set out as building blocks starting with a generic Working at the Farm Assessment with linked guidance notes for staff and volunteers. This will include all the hazards that staff and volunteers are likely to come across regardless of the activity they are undertaking. Subsequent Risk Assessments then build on this assessment by highlighting additional risks above and beyond those already identified to avoid repetition and increase usability. Each Risk Assessment will indicate any pre-requisite that needs to be taken into account for that activity. Examples include: • Working at the Farm • Working with the public • Working with vulnerable groups • Working with offenders • Working with livestock • Working with hand tools • Working with power tools and equipment • Working in a kitchen
We recommend that as part of the Systems Approach, all new comers, whether staff or volunteers will be required to complete an agreed induction and read any risk assessment and complete any identified training before carrying out a task. Further, we recommend that staff and volunteers sign a centrally held record to confirm that these actions have been carried
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out. This type of system is a common approach adopted but similar types of projects and records can also be used to provide evidence towards staff and volunteers employability skills. Health and Safety, therefore, will be used both as a management tools to ensure the safety of anyone involved and as a training and development aid to delivery wider social benefits.
6.4 Livestock In advance of introducing livestock to the farm would clear guidance and advice is available to follow in Preventing or controlling ill health from animal contact at visitor attractions - Industry Code of Practice .
The FCFCG has significant expertise and there are a number of established community farms in Yorkshire who are happy to mentor starter projects.
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7.0 Legal Issues and Regulations
Key legal issues and regulations that City Farms need to consider include the following
• Animal Health • Public Liability Insurance • Tenancy agreements with land owner or Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) • Memorandum of Understanding and other contracts to support provision of services • Safeguarding • Fire Safety
7.1 Animal Health If agricultural livestock are to be kept on site on a temporary or permanent basis, including for one day events and shows, the farm must first obtain a holding number, register with the local Trading Standards Animal Health Department and appoint a vet. Agricultural livestock includes poultry (unless fewer than 50 birds at all times during the year), pigs, cattle, sheep and goats, and deer.
Animal welfare legislation is based on the Five Freedoms. These underpin all animal health regulations whether for agricultural animals or others , the five freedoms are:
1. Freedom from Hunger and Thirst
2. Freedom from Discomfort
3. Freedom from Pain, Injury or Disease
4. Freedom to Express Normal Behaviour
5. Freedom from Fear and Distress
Specifically related to agricultural livestock, the recording of animal movement regulations and must be adhered to along with individual Codes of Practice for the Welfare of each of the agricultural livestock species and further regulations on the transport of livestock, and control of diseases. Specific additional regulations apply to the licencing of events where animals are involved and veterinary medicine storage and recording regulations.
In addition to the regulations relating to animals, where the public have access to livestock, additional requirements around the prevention of the transmission of disease between animal and human come in to play. (see Industry Code of Practice).
7.2 Public Liability Animals add a significant extra burden in terms of regulation and control measures to ensure both stock and people are kept safe. The risks of this or problems will have an impact on the
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cost of public liability insurance. However, these issues are not new or unique and should not be used as an excuse to avoid keeping livestock as the benefit they bring is significant.
Public Liability insurance is available from specialist insurers such as the NFU Mutual who can also help with managing risk by providing advice and guidance.
7.3 Tenancy agreements with land owner or Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) There are examples of where communities have undertaken meanwhile projects on vacant sites without permission from the land owner, either because the owner is unknown or has not responded to request. This approach would not be advisable for this project as Developers have repatriated their land at very short notice and would pose a significant risk to the viability of a significant investment in a meanwhile project.
Ideally, a tenancy should be entered into and MOUs may be suitable for outlying growing containers, for example in adjacent car parks or street scene. The Stalled Spaces project has published advice on these matters although these must be taken with English legal advice due to Stalled Spaces operating under the slightly different Scottish legal system.
Meanwhile leases can be drawn up when a piece of land currently not being used is leased to a community group who use the site for cultivation. The advantage is that land that would otherwise lay empty and unused can be put to good use by community groups in a way that brings benefits and opportunities for local people and the land owner. The obvious disadvantage is that much hard work could go into establishing a site, only for that work to be disrupted if the land then reverts to its original purpose in a short time period.
The FCFCF manages the Community Land Advisory Service and would be able to give detailed support and advice to the projects
7.4 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) and other contracts MOUs and/or contracts will be required for the farm to provide services such as those delivered by Care Farms to ensure that services are delivered to specification and all parties are aware of their responsibilities. Care Farms provide a range of services similar to day care or support services but are based on farms. Further information on Care Farming in provided in Parts 9 & 14 and at http://www.carefarminguk.org/
7.5 Safeguarding The Farm will be providing a range of services, some of which are likely to be targeted at schools and young people in other settings. It may also target other vulnerable people. To ensure appropriate protection for any vulnerable people, it will be necessary to draw up a safeguarding policy and processes. There is a significant resource within HCC to offer advice and support in this respect.
7.6 Fire Safety City farms are at risk of fire, particularly where livestock are involved and hay and/or straw may be kept. In addition, the management of animals in the event of a fire is a key issue that
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needs to be planned for. Fire is also a risk where buildings are involved. Therefore, a comprehensive Fire Risk Assessment needs to be carried out. Insurers and the fire brigade will also require this to be done and, again, where animals are involved, the Fire Service will want to know key contact details and have access to a contingency plan for evacuating animals.
Fire risk assessment will also be necessary where using novel building methods to ensure standards are met and systems in place for evacuation and mustering.
The Fire Service is usually good at providing this type of advice at the planning stage.
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8.0 Other Resources Required
See section 3 for comments on ongoing costs.
Resources will be needed to cover costs of regulatory processes such as planning permission, environmental health processes for contaminated land etc...
Governance will be required to support a steering group, board of trustees/directors depending on the business model chosen. As indicated in part 4, governance support may be provided through an existing exemplar farm project until such times as it is ready for full independence.
Further advice, support for the project via a mentoring programme for the farm manager and/or Trustees/Directors where they come from the local community without strong background in Social Entrepreneurship would be advisable. This could be supported through CSR programmes of local business and industry.
Further resources outside those identified in part 3 will include office furniture and IT equipment including a projector, screen, folding tables and stacking chairs. Some of this equipment could be acquired through recycling of IT refresh programmes form HCC or other large business.
Livestock buildings could for instance be purchased and/or built by volunteers under supervision, or be constructed by a company (as part of its CSR or traineeship) or by college students.
In support of events, particularly those around food and cooking, a set of gazebos and gas hobs would also be necessary. These could be funded through a targeted grant application in support of food sharing events as suggested by members of the Black Environment Network to improve community cohesion, see part 9 below.
Hand tools, wheel barrows hoses and other gardening and livestock related equipment such as troughs feeders and drinkers for poultry, vet medicine cabinets etc… not mentioned in section 3.
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9.0 Potential Partners and Links to Complementary Activities
9.1 The Crossings http://www.hullharp.org.uk/the-crossings Homeless hostel situated on Great Union Street. A new £5million building catering for 46 people at any one time. They have an outreach team who are keen to involve the clients with practical activity. They already travel to various sites, including East Hull Community Farm. The work they do, has found to be very beneficial in re-integrating the clients back into society. The outreach team expressed an interest in being involved in a city centre farm, as there would be no additional cost in transport.
9.2 Food 360 http://www.probeltd.co.uk/community/community/pages/food360casestudies.html
Food 360 was borne from an original lottery funded bid approx. 4 years ago. It has now acquired funding for a further 3 years. Food 360 is a part of Probe (Hull) Ltd www.probeltd.co.uk the primary aim is to encourage and educate the residents of east Hull in taking a different approach to food, both in growing and cooking. They are very active in running courses and events and are involved in many city wide projects.
9.3 A Better Life for All An organisation dedicated to tackle children and teen domestic violence and sexual exploitation. Who have a parent or carer in custody. This is a new charity run by people who used to work in the prison service, who saw a need and decided to do something about it. They have expressed an interest in being able to use the services at the city centre farm in helping these young people. They would like a facility on the farm which would act as a base to deliver courses and offer advice and guidance. The intention is to get the young people actively involved with practical projects on the farm.
9.4 East Hull Community Farm (EHCF) http://www.easthullcommunityfarm.co.uk EHCF has been operational as a community farm since 1995. The only city farm in Hull, there expertise is in being a site for students with Special Educational Needs who work on the farm as well as receiving classroom training. Since January 2013 Food 360 have a section of the farm dedicated to a growing area, looking at different aspects of growing. A building has also been converted to a training and discovery centre.
There has been some discussion regarding the possible duplication of services between EHCF and the proposed city farm. However they specialise in working with students with Special Educational Needs and so has a different target audience to the proposed city farm. They do not get involved in running agricultural or horticultural courses. They do however have products which could be marketed and sold at the city centre farm, sausages, eggs and bacon this would be of help to the farm, as they only have a limited number visiting their east Hull site.
9.5 Food 4 Hull http://www.transitionhull.co.uk/%20food4hull The aims of Food 4 Hull are as Follows:
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• Identify, amplify, support, promote and celebrate the existing work around food in Hull and surrounding areas
• Build awareness of, and increase access to, sustainable, local food and reduce food miles
• Strive to reduce food poverty
• Promote the links between diet and health
• Explore the recycling of food waste
• Bring together and work with local stakeholders including local communities, businesses, policy makers and public health advocates
• Enhance long-term food security for all
• Create learning and training opportunities to support the above aims
• Food4Hull is a not-for-profit organisation.
9.6 BAMEEN Black and Minority Ethnic Environment Network Hull http://www.bameen.org.uk/ /Black Environment network (BEN) www.ben- network.org.uk
A meeting with BAMEEN/BEN took place on the 3 rd December in which views were taken on the Farm project. The meeting unanimously agreed that the farm would be ideal as a site to demonstrate the different cultures to include growing and the cooking of food. The social aspect was targeted as a priority identifying that to be able to grow veg and salads together, then to eat together, has been proven to break down barriers. This fact was treated with enthusiasm, with discussion leading to the possibility of each ethnic group being able to prepare and cook food and share use of container space.
Such an approach would make a valuable contribution to social cohesion and communication between the different ethnic groups in the city.
Notes from the meeting can be seen in Appendix 2.
9.7 Yorkshire Wildlife Trust http://www.ywt.org.uk/ The Wildlife Trust has expressed an interest in working with the farm on two levels. To create a miniature farm environment to highlight interactions between food production and wildlife, for example, pollination; and as a potential supplier of meat to the shop and or café from their own livestock reared locally on nature reserves.
The Trust already has a presence within Hull and have established a wildlife area in Pearson park as well as numerous projects throughout the city. One example would be Log Lands on Longhill which has been supported by YWT who have organised volunteer days etc.
9.8 Hull University http://www2.hull.ac.uk/ Hull and York Medical School (HYMS), part of Hull University are looking for locations where students can get out into hard to reach populations in the local community to work gain
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experience of health issues in such situations. HYMS have expressed an interest in working with the farm to help with advice and training in Health and Nutrition if the farm can help with access to the target communities. This would have wider benefits of raising the profile and accessibility of Higher education to groups typically under represented at university, breaking down barriers and raising aspirations whilst supporting improvements in health education in hard to reach groups and experience of such groups with the next generation of doctors.
9.9 Arthur Street Trading http://www.arthursorganics.com/ Is the only organic box scheme based in Hull, from their site on Arthur Street. They have recently partnered with Food 4 Hull to increase their community involvement. They deliver organic produce in Hull and the surrounding area. They have expressed an interest in being involved in running a food hub at the city centre farm. The city centre farm would be an ideal fit with the opportunity of selling other related products in an environment similar to their own. Rental would be payable or a possible franchise opportunity.
9.10 Stockbridge Technology Centre http://www.stockbridgetechnology.co.uk An experimental horticultural site near Selby incorporating Discovering our Countryside which works within schools promoting the countryside and agriculture with the use of videos. Stockbridge is also involved in an LED growing project that could have a demonstrator unit at the Farm. They may also be interested in renting space for an operating base and use of training room.
9.11 RHS www.rhs.org.uk The RHS would like to be involved with the farm. They are keen to expand in Hull as they are developing a community project to encourage residents into growing. Their aim is to establish accredited training facilities which will offer practical as well as theoretical teaching. They are at present only working with a small number of primary schools in Hull. The City farm would be an ideal central location to base their activities.
9.12 Densholm Care Farm http://www.densholmefarm-action.co.uk Densholm Care Farm has expressed an interest in working with the city farm. This could be a useful partnership allowing knowledge transfer in areas of mental health and wellbeing, running training programmes and other areas of synergy and also provide assistance in gaining recognition as a facility providing paid for services. See Part 14 for more information on Care Farms.
9.13 Examples of organisations with an element of ‘making money go further’ SEARCH – Working with churches in Hull focussing on debt management and ‘living better for less in Hull’ they have connections to trained counsellors who work in many churches in Hull. Two staff are employed to encourage and educate the churches to look at the whole aspect of food. Cookery courses are undertaken, from basic bread making to preparing and cooking a ‘take a way’ meal at home for a fraction of the cost. They also have a full range of easy to follow recipes with the total and serving cost.
CAP (Christians against Poverty) - Another church based group which has a small presence in Hull they help anyone who is experiencing debt problems. They deal directly with the creditors and arrange mutual payment plans.
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Hull & East Yorkshire Credit Union (HEYCU) - a co-operative business that provides financial services on a "not for profit" basis to thousands of local people. HEYCU has been working in Hull for 11 years and has lots of achievements to its name. It was founded in 1999 by a group of Hull City Council workers with a passion about the potential for credit unions to make a difference in Britain. They firmly believed that the best way to achieve their aims was to work in partnership with all kinds of other organisations, for mutual benefit.
Hull University Enterprise Centre - Aims to contribute to social and economic development through supporting the development of innovative new enterprises. The Enterprise Centre acts as a central point of access at the University of Hull for activities which will enhance enterprise skills and inspire business start-ups, supporting and driving activities for students, graduates and colleagues, as well members of the wider community. The Centre also works with schools to help create a more enterprising culture.
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10.0 Social, Economic and Environmental Benefits
The Social, Economic and Environmental benefits of both greening brownfield sites and community engagement in volunteering, growing produce and rearing livestock are well documented anecdotally and in research literature. Above the immediately measurable benefits identified in some of the commissioned research are the longer term enhanced outcomes for individuals and communities and the consequent improvements in community cohesion that help reduce demand on local services. These harder to measure, wider impacts take longer to achieve and necessarily longer to measure and do not fit well with narrowly defined KPIs that require delivery over short time frames. Therefore, it is necessary to look at academic and charity funded literature for evidence rather than the short term practitioner analysis of individual project to get a sense of the wider, longer term benefits of participation.
Evidence gathered by Mind to assess the effectiveness of Ecotherapy, an intervention that improves mental and physical health and wellbeing by supporting people to be active outdoors: doing gardening, food growing or environmental work (Mind 2013) found that it:
• Increase participants resilience levels so that they are better able to withstand difficult times and have a supportive community around them, • Participants adopted healthier lifestyles including increased physical activity levels • Participants felt more involved in their local community, reducing social isolation • Participants felt more connected with the natural world and adopted environmentally friendly behaviours
“Urban agriculture benefits the economy, environment, and well-being of those active in the industry, as well as residents who enjoy its products. It plays a role in programs and projects that target health and nutrition, the environment, enterprise development, income generation [and] youth and women.” Smit and Ratta (2001) Ch 7 p.1.
“Perhaps the biggest benefit [of city farms] of all could be the connection between the themes, which allows so many benefits to be delivered by one project…….The overlap between environmental and health themes demonstrate how key the natural environment is to our wellbeing……..The evidence highlights that in deprived areas projects raise the aspirations of local people and provide them with the skills to bring about positive changes to both their own lives, and their neighbourhood” Quayle (2007) p.79
“The physical and social qualities of garden participation awaken the senses and stimulate a range of responses that influence interpersonal processes (learning, affirming, and expressive experiences) and social relationships that are supportive of positive health-related behaviours and overall health.” Knapp et al (2011) taken from abstract.
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11.0 Risks and Risk Management
Risks - Likelihood and impact scores
Green Low risk Likelihood x impact = risk rating
Amber Medium risk < 10 = Low 10 - 14 = Medium > 14 = High
Red High risk
No. Nature of Risk Consequence Inherent risk Action that will eg reduce, avoid, accept, share/transfer and any potential cost (you may want Likelihood Impact 1-5 L x I to add a risk budget column) 1-25 1-5 1-5
1-5 (5 being most likely)
1 No land available No Farm 3 5 15 HCC to engage for land internally and externally. Raise profile of project to engage private land owners to make land available. Consider grant application to buy land for permanent farm. Consider grant application to carry out gorilla gardening, vegetable growing in amenity beds and in city parks
2 Un able to secure Enterprise elements of the 3 5 15 Look to private business to run elements of the project funds for buildings project will not be possible such as the cafe and shop to secure investment Set up growing project without buildings and build project to gain support for future funding
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3 No take up from Reduced impact. Targets 1 3 3 Continued consultation with stakeholders to ensure stakeholders outcomes not delivered activities are appropriately designed and delivered. effectively
4 Accidents or health and Reduced impact. Targets 1 5 5 Health and safety procedures in place. External safety issue (including outcomes not delivered scrutiny of policies and processes to ensure high livestock related) effectively or standards. Livestock impacting on reputation Farm closure management and procedures to highest standards and or causing shut down scrutinised by external expertise such as Animal Health of project Dept.
5 On-going revenue Impact on service delivery 2 4 8 Detailed business plan required with projects assessed costs not met by through lack of maintenance, for economic sustainability. Any grant funded activities, income inability to pay staff/contractors. grant applications scrutinised for economic sustainability Services stop Ongoing support sought from private and public through sponsorship, events and other fund raising
6 Land required by Cost of moving to new location 5 5 25 The nature of the farm is that this will happen. The developer after project project must factor removal costs into the programme and installation not overextend the farm infrastructure without setting aside money for removal or be prepared to sell elements of the project Agreement with land owner over minimum period of use and notice period to allow time to raise any necessary funds for removal, to find new site and make adjustments to ongoing projects to ensure smooth transition
7 No land available at a see 1 above 3 5 15 Re-assess farm project to see if still required/desired. time when the farm Consider how it has developed over time and look to see need to vacate if a different approach could/needs to be adopted. property Discuss with developer whether and how the project could be integrated into development, innovation of design and delivery also, see 1 above.
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8 Influence through There is a risk that 1 3 3 Any offers to contribute will require ethical scrutiny. Any sponsors sponsorship/grants funders and grant, finance or subsidy that has conditions attached others who contribute to the should be tested against a set of predetermined project farm may try and influence the policies on funding. Grants restricting the farms ability to project for their own ends engage in support of its core vision should not be impacting on ethos of the considered. project, reducing its ability to serve the community and affect its reputation
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12.0 Potential Income Streams and Sources of External Funding
12.1 Income Streams Café – this could be licenced to an external provider or managed in house
Sales of produce – Produce grown on farm and from other local sources should be sold to provide an income. Depending on the volumes of produce and demand, this could be set up as a shop on site and run in house or by licence to a Trader. Arthur Street Traders have already expressed an interest in a potential food hub and the Yorkshire Wildlife are interested in selling their meat reared on local nature reserves through the farm.
Sales of Services
• Care Farm type services (see Part 14) could be sold to service commissioning bodies such as the NHS, Probation Service, Youth Service, Education Service etc… • Training courses for local people and businesses. The Skip Garden have delivered Training to the Developers of the site on which they are located
Rental of Facilities – If a multipurpose room could be provided, i.e. through additional container buildings, Room hire in a novel environment within the city would have potential.. This could be rented for use as a meeting space, exhibition space, training room for external providers. This model is used at Newcastle City Farm.
Events – through pay on entry special events, licencing of stalls and trade stands etc… can provide income at peak times.
12.2 Sources of External Funding There is a range of potential sources of external funding, from and business and individuals through sponsorship, croudsource funding and legacies, Corporate Social Responsibility programmes to mainstream grant giving bodies. HCC has internally funded support for securing external funding through Hull4Funding. North Bank Forum are also providing free Fundraiser training. Some examples of the many sources of external funding are identified below:
National Lottery - Has a record in providing both capital and revenue funding for City Farm Projects
LEADER - Funding and support for securing training. Typically for rural areas but a partnership with a Rural based scheme such as Densholm Care Farm may enable access to LEADER funding
The SIB Group –Provides funding to help local community groups become financial sustainable. Will support capital and revenue to purchase and refurbish assets and workspaces.
Allen Lane Foundation – focus funding on community projects that will make a lasting difference to people’s lives rather than simply alleviating the symptoms or current problems, is aimed at reducing isolation, stigma and discrimination, and encourages or enables unpopular groups to share in the life of the whole community.
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Ashden – supports local energy solutions that cut carbon, protect the environment, reduce poverty and improve people’s lives.
Acorn Fund - Hull Business Development Fund Ltd is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Chamber of Commerce and a local 'Enterprise Gap Fund' providing financial support to business start-ups unable to find funding from traditional sources and who can demonstrate job creation and sustainability potential.
Co-operative – Offer small grants that address a community issue, provide a good long-term benefit to the community, support co-operative values and principles and ideally be innovative in approach. Member of the local Cooperative Area Committee have expressed an interest in receiving a grant application from the City Farm
Reaching Communities BLF – Funds projects that can help meet the aim of improving communities and the lives of people most in need. Grants are available for more than £10,000 for projects lasting up to five years to cover a range of costs including salaries and equipment, limit of £100,000 for capital costs such as land, buildings or refurbishment. Higher levels of funding are also available for projects that have significant impact
12.3 In addition to the above, the vision for the farm sits well with the themes in Hull’s programme for the City of Culture. This fit could help the Farm secure funding as part of the wider City of Culture activities. It is important to note with the successful bid to City of Culture the farm represents a significant contribution to the role food plays in the culture of Hull.
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13.0 Learning from Elsewhere
Examples of projects that provide potential templates and/or ideas that can be incorporated into a city farm in Hull are provided in Section 5 of this report. Further learning from elsewhere is also highlighted in Part 10
In addition to the above, this report has touched on the value of care farming. This section will explore this area further with some direct examples of practice locally and academic evidence.
Care Farming UK states that Care Farming is the therapeutic use of farming practices . Care farms provide: health, social or educational care services for one or a range of vulnerable groups of people; a supervised, structured programme of farming-related activities; services on a regular basis for participants. They are commissioned to provide care farming services by referral .
The nearest Care Farm to Hull identified in the research is Densholm Care Farm in Great Hatfield near Hornsea. Denholms is an exemplar Care Farm whose purpose is ‘To Share The Farm With Those Who May Benefit’ and are an East Riding of Yorkshire Council Registered Day Care Provider ( http://densholmefarm-action.co.uk/ ). Denholm is a Care Farm with significant experience in working with vulnerable groups, particularly Special Educational Needs but also with a range of other groups. They provide local evidence of the benefits of farming related activities.
Willowdene Care Farm located in Shropshire, specialising in Substance Misuse recovery with offenders and those involved in violent, domestic and sexual abuse. The Care Farm has been in operation for over 20 years. With residential and day care facilities. The Farms offers a range of therapies and courses and is a registered training provider with several land based industry awarding bodies. Willowdene’s success is reflected in the high numbers of clients that go on to employment having completed their therapy and training. (http://ritesocialenterprises.org.uk )
Nineveh Ridge Care Farm in Worcestershire works with SEN groups, substance miss use and people suffering from mental heal issues. This care farm specialises on clients who have individualised budgets rather than block provision and relies on providing a quality environment and services to remain sustainable. Nineveh Ridge also combines it care farm work with regular farm visits for school children and other groups and hold events. (http://www.ninevehridgecarefarm.org.uk/ )
Care farms provide a shared, non-hierarchical and comfortable space within which everyone can contribute productively for the benefit of the community as a whole. Some of their value is in the range of activities, catering for people of all sorts of abilities and skill sets: everyone can contribute and therefore has a value. (Leck 2013) It is this sense of being able to contribute that helps raise people’s self-esteem and contributes to improved mental health.
Rural based, care farms show how farming and growing related activities can be used to support people in real difficulties, providing important services that can help them get back on the their feet and active in society. In addition, Nineveh Ridge is one example of how this can
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be integrated into a farm visitor attraction that provides access to farming and education in the wider society. This type of approach could be adopted in the city environment to target specific issues identified in the Making Money Go Further consultation providing high quality services that represent good value for money targeting the whole person and the community in which they are from.
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14.0 Stakeholder Views
A consultation event was held on 28 th November at Community Enterprise centre. This event was targeted at stakeholders who may be interested using or interacting with the farm is some way. The event was structures in a way to encourage the participants to consider approached to city farming from the UK and elsewhere and, in the light of the local context, consider what benefits a city farm could be of value to them, their organisation or their client groups. 41 people attended, representing 36 separate organisations. Assistance with event management was provided by staff from Northbank Forum and Hull City Council. IT support was provided by Jerome Whittingham.
Participants were encouraged to discuss the potential and record their thoughts by writing on the paper table cloths, verbally by providing group feedback during the session and by completing pledge forms indicating responses linked to the individual.
To further raise awareness of the City Farm feasibility Study and to encourage more interested parties to comment, we set up a web page, www.rootedinhull.org.uk and twitter site, @rooted in Hull.
14.1 Feedback was collected, collated and analysed from which the following key themes have been identified.
14.11 Training and education Stakeholder views focused on Education for schools and teachers, growing and innovations in growing, sustainability, Meat and how to rear and prepare it and employability skills including entrepreneurship
14.12 Business approach Comments reflecting the business approach were frequent with questions focusing on ownership and structures and how the community could feed into decision making. Points were also raised on finance for the project including suggestions on sponsorship and partnerships with local business. Importantly, several recommendations were made on the quality of the infrastructure to reflect a flagship model acting as a hub for other satellite projects including those related to other non-food, environmental issues. There was also a clear desire to keep the money in the area by selling local produce including fish and shellfish. A café was mentioned on several occasions.
14.13 Partnership Partnership working had very strong presence throughout the analysis with partnership working recommended for community groups, private business, schools and colleges all being well represented.
It is important to repeat that with the successful bid to City of Culture the farm represents a significant contribution to the role food plays in the culture of Hull
14.14 Methods of Delivery This theme was mostly represented by comments on growing methods including vertical growing and aquaponics.
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14.15 Inclusion of Livestock Animals or livestock received lots of attention but not in any specific way. One comment did mention how animals can hold people’s attention when growing produce is a bit slow and a further comment on using animals to reflect the City’s heritage
14.16 Wildlife and the environment Wildlife and the environment was well represented with comments on green spaces in the city, pollinators, how the city farm could represent the relationship between commercial farming and the environment and wider environmental themes including renewable energy being picked out
14.17 Pledge Forms Thirty five pledge forms have been returned so far. Key areas of interest from the pledge forms were
• Attending events around food issues • Volunteering Learning about vegetables and growing • Contributing staff time • Delivering training • Receiving training • Food markets • Food related competitions
Full results and comments made on the Pledge forms is provided in Appendix 2
14.2 Consultation with the Business Community It was not felt appropriate to officially consult the Business Community about the Farm as the Vision for the Farm has not been agreed. Once the Vision has been drawn out of the communities for which the Farm is identified to serve, a separate Consultation event should take place with the Business Community to allow them to indicate if and how they would like to be involved to support that Vision.
However, some actors in the business community are aware of the project and have had the opportunity to pledge there general support in favour of the Farm. These include Richard Ralph, a Hull based Architect who has provided some Architectural plans and drawings free of charge to help with the consultation event, Sam Whittaker, Esteem, who has seen the plans and expressed Esteems interest and support, Jerome Whittingham, Hull based Photographer who provided IT support with the Website, Twitter feed and Consultation event free of charge.
Richard Ralph also indicated clients that would be interested in discussing support for the Café; The University of Hull Business School would like to support and facilitate discussions with local business.
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15.0 Potential Customers/Service Users /visitors
Of the 36 organisations represented, approximately 15 groups would be classed as service users. These tend to be groups already experienced with growing projects and who expressed their interest in being involved.
The remaining organisations could be classed as customers. Many expressed an interest in delivering courses or organising other groups to take part. This would generate some income.
Visitor numbers are subject to events and activities. Evidence gathered from groups involved with growing in the community suggests an increased interest in the ‘green agenda’. The presence of a local food café and food hub would help to increase visitor numbers. In addition, location will have an impact on visitor numbers. Comments made during the consultation event suggested that residents are territorial - they will use the city centre but feel uncomfortable in other residential areas of the city.
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16.0 Sustainability Issues
It is widely accepted that sustainability rests on three pillars – Community, Environment and Economy. The key to the sustainability of a City farm will rest equally on each of these three pillars. As outlined in this report, a need for a city farm has been identified there is significant support for it from the local community. With respect to its impact on the environment, strategic objectives of a City farm should incorporate the impact of food and food waste on the environment including the impact of different growing methods and the use of inputs. This report has outlined suggestions from the stakeholder meetings that meet these issues and are achievable. For example, Yorkshire Wildlife Trust input on conservation reared meat and wildlife area within the farm, on site renewable energy and the use of recycled materials. Perhaps the more difficult element to deliver is the economic pillar. The examples below provide insight into how economic sustainability can be achieved.
Set up costs can be prohibitive. Some of these could be waived or offset in kind for services provided. For Example, the costs of submitting a planning application for the City farm could be met by the City Council as a sign of goodwill or in return for maintaining a nearby public garden for a year.
Some projects are free to enter but charge for car parking. This encourages the use of public transport. Parking charges could be shared between the HCC and the farm base on an assessment of uplift in fees following opening of the farm.
Kings Cross Skip Garden was given access to waste from the development site reducing the cost of materials. Major waste producers in Hull may be in a position to do the same. One potential opportunity is the waste wood and or wood chip from the management of cityscape trees, this could be donated to use in a wood burning stove or power pallet if these technologies were incorporated into the design.
West Midlands Care Farming helped negotiate a block contract for a number of fledgling Care Farms in its first two years to deliver services to Worcestershire County Drugs and Alcohol Action Team (DAAT). The contract included support from DAAT. This enabled care farms them to build capacity in this area of need. Following the end of the contract, they were in a position to continue to offer these valuable services on a commercial basis. This approach could be used for the Hull farm
A Worcestershire Social Forestry project secured lottery funding to provide trial places for adults with mental health issues. This included revenue funding for an occupational the therapist to assess the benefits of the project. This enabled the project to build capacity and provide evidence of the benefits of Social Forestry to its clients and commissioning bodies improving its success in winning future contracts
Sales of goods and services must be a keystone of the City Farm:
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An onsite café that could provide three ways of providing an income: to provide refreshment to visitors; to provide food as part of service provision to clients; as a training kitchen reducing staff costs or receiving an income for training delivery.
Sales of produce grown on farm and grown locally.
Provision of lunchtime and post work short training courses. For example, a lunch time bites series or lunch hour sessions for city workers where a short, 45 minute talk/training workshop about growing food, nutrition or other subject is accompanied with a nice lunch produced by the café form produce grown on the farm.
Setting up and running events and exhibitions.
Renting of facilities for externally run training events, meetings and other uses
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17.0 Local Context
The research and information collected from other sites, proved that each project adapts to its surroundings and input from the groups who work there. For instance the ‘Skip Garden’ in Kings Cross, London is developing its own connection to the private sector, creating a successful working partnership, especially with the corporate Guardian Newspaper group, who are situated in easy walking distance from the garden. They send staff to attend courses at the skip garden relating to growing or preparing and cooking food. This in turn allows the garden to charge for this service allowing them to be sustainable.
In contrast to the Skip Garden, Incredible Edible in Todmerdon concentrated on getting the whole town involved with growing vegetables. Very little investment was needed to set this up as it relied on a few people who worked tirelessly in encouraging volunteers to grow on any waste land. It has now exploded into a global phenomenon with towns and cities from around the world signing up as ‘Incredible Edible’ towns.
Looking inwardly at Hull, the city has a fantastic heritage of fishing, farming and horticulture. However, whilst the fishing industry is reflected in the Maritime Museum and connection with the sea is explored in other way in ‘The Deep’, farming and horticulture are not well represented.
Farming used to be an integral part of the city economy, boasting a busy livestock market in the centre of as well as flour mills. Arthur Rank was once the largest flour miller in UK, with the now desolate mill still standing on Clarence Street.
The neighbouring countryside has experienced a significant change to rival the city scape with the Yorkshire and Lincolnshire Wolds, the Holderness Plain and the Humberhead levels now dominated by arable farming with low employment levels and access to land restricted only to the most wealthy estates. The area of Sunk Island is classed as some of the best soil worldwide due to being reclaimed from the Humber over the past 100 years.
Village life has suffered, an example would be the parish of East Garton, between Hornsea and Withernsea. In the 1960’s 25 farms existed with approx. 250 people connected to those farms who worked on them and socially got involved with village life, ensuring that fete’s, cricket matches, harvest festivals etc... were a success. More importantly as a community it looked after those who were disadvantaged in some way.
That same parish as of 2013 now has 3 farms, with 7 people directly involved with farming. Only two dairy farms now exist in the whole Holderness region. Arable farming has evolved into a very lonely profession with very often one man managing and working 1000 acres.
Once a thriving industry benefitting from the high quality soils, horticulture enterprises in the area have also seen a decline with possibly only one market garden left in the Hull region. Those who have survived have specialised into mono growing, directly selling to the supermarkets. An example would be Keyingham were the majority of glass house growing, specialises in producing strawberries all year round.
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Many Dutch families moved into Hull in the 1930’s bringing with them new growing techniques and developing new technology especially in glasshouse design. Sadly this is not part of Hull life now. Humber Street was once a thriving market of local produce, now moved to Priory Park where it is now difficult to find anything grown in the UK.
We have a large part of the Hull economy dependant on the processed food industry. In Yorkshire there are 15,000 food companies with a workforce of 48,000. However, the production of fresh food is almost gone.
Waste is becoming a major issue, Tesco have only just revealed that they wasted 30,000 tonnes of food over a six month period. The UK food industry wasted, last year, 2012 68% of all bagged salad, we as consumers wasted 35% of that figure.
Austerity in Hull, as in many other cities is a growing problem. It has been documented that 2600 people in Hull rely on food banks. Yet Obesity in the UK seems to be more of a problem than hunger. Yet in the past, local communities were more resilient to food poverty. There was greater access to land (Cahill 2002) and the ability to grow your own, both vegetables and meat, and access to wild food from foraging and trapping. This personal resilience also provided goods to trade. Such resilience has been lost with the disconnection from land.
A city centre farm has the potential to reflect this local heritage and to provide people with some of the lost skills of resilience at an individual level and at a community level through providing access to a small area of land, to develop skills in growing and cooking and build community cohesion. This knowledge could then be transferred back to the communities and support home growing and neighbourly support networks. The Farm could also provide a signposting service to other projects, formal education and training towards a career in horticulture, agriculture and the food industry.
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18.0 Conclusions
Our research has shown that a City Farm Project would be welcomed by diverse groups across all areas of the City and there is clear evidence supporting the social, environmental and economic benefits that it would bring.
We recognise the significant difficulties in identifying available land for such a project, particularly of a permanent nature. For this reason we have considered how a City Farm project could be designed for ‘meanwhile’ use, i.e. that can be moved from time to time using vacant development sites between the end of lifecycle of one building and the creation of a new one. This approach is not new and, as we have discussed, there are a number of similar growing project using this approach.
Our review of projects both in the UK and abroad identify some common themes, a key theme being projects responses to financial sustainability. In response to this problem we have suggest that the project trades in a range of goods and services there by creating a diverse and resilient income stream with specific projects and capital investment supported by grants from public, charitable and private sector.
Another challenge we can see is how to create a City Farm that is welcome to all from whatever part of the city or community visitors and participants may be from. We have anecdotal evidence from interviews carried out with local actors on how the city is divided both east west but also community by community. This is not an unusual situation for a city and we have identified that locating the Farm away from a residential area will help reduce barriers to participation through locating the project in neutral space.
Services for marginalised communities are often located on the margins, reinforcing there position in society as on the edge. When these services are provided within the community itself they may be, by the fact of being part of the physical infrastructure of a poor neighbourhood, housed in low quality or poorly maintained buildings. This does nothing to raise the aspirations of those most in need of a higher horizon. In addition, our experience of working in this type of community shows that young people often have expectations that they will stay in those communities for life and that they have difficultly relating to a world beyond (they have low mobility), particularly a world of success and high aspiration. In choosing such a location in an area of aspiration for the project, it will challenge participant’s perspectives in a supportive environment. In this way the project and those that participate with it will be seen to be a valued part of the city. Such an approach has other benefits. For example, by being cheek by jowl with glass office towers, staff at the Kings Cross Skip Garden identified how the project gave implicit permission for the participants to talk to, work with and learn from visitors from more affluent backgrounds. This approach broke down barriers and allowed participants to realise that they were all just people like them, thus making the prospect of looking outside ones local community less daunting. Being located in the City also opens up additional markets for trading in goods and services that will improve the projects sustainability.
For the reasons given above, we feel that the location of city farm must be in the heart of the regenerating city, amongst high aspiration: Somewhere people want to be.
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There are a number of challenges to setting up a project of this type, not least the laws and regulations surrounding such projects. Whilst onerous, these are not insurmountable as is testament to the many city farms, community gardens and growing projects throughout the UK. However, a new city farm will require the support of well qualified people with experience in delivery this type of project. With the support of the Federation of City Farms and Community Gardens, the right local support and staff, there is a greater chance of securing external funds for both infrastructure and ongoing revenue cost.
Finally, Hull has a strong heritage in agriculture that is not well represented in the city heritage provision. A city farm would redress this balance providing a visitor attraction element to its service and increase it sustainability. Situating the city farm close to other heritage/education facilities such as the museums would bring additional benefits to the farms target audience as they would be more likely to visit these other sites as part of a full day of activities and vice versa. In locating the farm in an area that does not require walking through the key retail development of the city, visitors will also be more likely to visit the farm and to take their children to visit the museums without fear of peer pressure to spend money, an important consideration for hard up families.
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19.0 Recommendations
We recommend that:
1. The location of a city farm must be in the heart of the regenerating city, amongst high aspiration: somewhere people want to be
2. The farm is sufficiently remote from a community territory so as not to create barriers to participation
3. The Farm is set up as an independent enterprise that can work across all sectors and areas of the community without political or territorial barriers.
4. The farm links to related activities across the city, for some acting as an important hub
5. The farm delivers trade in goods and services to ensure a diverse income stream
6. A further consultation event takes place with local business to gather support and sponsorship
7. Owners of appropriate sites are lobbied to make land accessible in the right locations
8. Food, Health and Nutrition and its impact on the personal economy should be at the heart of the project and its outcomes
9. The environment and sustainability should be factored in to design and methods
10. The target audience should be a balance between marginalised communities and with partnership with business and education to raise aspirations
11. The long term aspiration should be for a permanent farm in the centre of the City.
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Appendix 1 – Record of Stakeholder Meetings
Open Day event at Arthur Street Trading (Organic) in conjunction with Food 4 Hull
Saturday 30 th November 2013, Jubilee Church, Walton Street, Hull
Approximately 45 people attended
An event arranged to introduce customers of Arthur St Trading, to those associated with the business as well as community groups.
I attended to support Arthur Street trading, expecting to spend ten to fifteen minutes there. However I was asked to give a short presentation of the proposed box farm. It eventually became a question and answer session with many people pledging their support.
In particular 5 people have asked to be kept informed and would like to be involved in some way
Richard Smith, Lorna Walker, Sabine Bieli (from Germany who gave a connection to a growing site in the centre of Berlin) Tom Hazeldine from Reeds Hotel, south of the river, Tendercare from Barton on Humber.
‘A Growing Legacy’ Workshop’ on Local Food, Global Food, organised by Black Environment Network (BEN) with The Federation of City Farms and Community Gardens
Tuesday 3 rd December 2013 at Orchard Centre, Hull
Approximately 30 people attending
A workshop to discuss more involvement with the many ethnic groups in Hull, especially in regard to growing food and dealing with the issue of waste and recycling.
A presentation was given on the box farm followed by a workshop to see how the black and ethnic groups could get involved with the farm.
A very positive discussion proceeded, especially in regard to the City of Culture status. The box farm would be ideal as a site to demonstrate the different cultures to include growing and the cooking of food.
The social aspect was targeted as a priority, to be able to grow veg and salads together, then to eat together, has been proven to break down barriers. This fact was treated with enthusiasm, with discussion leading to the possibility of each ethnic group being able to prepare and cook food and share use of container space.
There was also importance placed on artistic involvement so the box farm would be a site pleasing to look at and encourage people who visit to look at the whole aspect of food in a different light!
From this was a unanimous support in the site being innovative and impressive, a place which Hull could be proud of.
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Finally emphasis was discussed in regard to ‘making money go further’ the concern was that a commercial interest would not overtake the community involvement. There is a need for showing how tasty, nutritious food can be available to anyone not just those with money.
Eight pledge forms were collected.
Stakeholder views captured on the Rooted in Hull City Farm Consultation Event
28 th November 2013
Approximately 40 people in attendance
Feedback from discussion groups
Table 1
• High Quality Design to attract visitors • Skills Exchange • Farm Animals to demonstrate correct farming practice. • Hub and Spur • Celebrate Water Heritage, possible barge.
Table 2
• Barges, one capable of fitting wheels to move around the city especially in museum quarter, to celebrate our industrial heritage. • Farm to become a centre of excellence acting as a hub, leading out as spokes to schools colleges etc. To work with teachers ensuring fitting in with curriculum. • Community, allotment market on the farm to sell produce at realistic, affordable prices, incl. arts and crafts.
Table 3
• Prefer permanent site, to plant according to organic and permaculture principles. • Partnership working with interested groups. • To promote wildlife principles.
Table 4
• Visitor attraction building on the city of culture bid. • Training with colleges, interactive learning. • Café with home grown food. • Nature trail
Table 5
• Introduce other cultural growing techniques. • Take ownership of project hub. • Private sector who are involved in food, get them on board for investment.
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Table 6
• Livestock element as an educational agenda. • Concerned at this consultation amounting to ‘nothing.’ • Organic production and an environmental component.
Consultation Event Tablecloth Notes Analysis
Summary report.
Using NVivo Data Analysis tool, the comments captured on the tablecloths during the Consultation event on 28 th November 2013 were sorted into themes. Table 1 below highlight the themes identified and the number of occasions they were raised by participants.
This analysis indicates that the participants at the event felt most strongly about:
• Training and education, 35 recorded comments • Business approach, 34 recorded comments • Partnership, 30 recorded comments • Methods of Delivery, 25 recorded comments • Inclusion of Livestock, 15 recorded comments • Wildlife and the environment, 13 recorded comments
Table 1
Theme Number of Occasions Business approach 34 Centre of Excellence 2 Events 7 Health related activities 3 Hub 8 Innovation in design 7 Livestock 15 Location 4 Methods 25 Partnership 30 Social issues 8 Support 1 Training and Education 35 Volunteering 3 Waste and recycling 2 Wildlife and the Environment 13
The section below highlights key issues raised in each of the six themes identified above
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28 th November 2013 Consultation event signing in sheet
Name Organisation
Danny Phelps @ the edge project c/o Community Karen Taylor Enterprise Centre Sue Alvis Amazing Play Paul Hanson Arthur St Trading Les Howell Avocet Trust Dawda Jetta BAMEEN Sam Chegwin CASE Lesley Bellerby Densholme Community Care Farm Jan Boyd Environmental Management Systems Sharon Clay Facilitator Iain Atkinson Facilitator Adrian Fisher Facilitator Mark Cleaver Facilitator Mick Marston Facilitator Helen Kay Facilitator Denise Smedley Facilitator Pippa Robson Facilitator NBF Claire Hancock Facilitator NBF Lee-Ann Williams Food4Hull Simon Merritt Greener Neighbourhoods HULL Michelle Watson Hessle Road Network Kate McDonald Hull and East Riding Timebank Name Organisation Cllr Andy Dorton Hull City Council Dave Shepherdson Hull City Council Claire Farrow Hull City Council (Public Health) Cllr John Hewitt Hull City Council Hull City Council (Youth Development Liz Woolmington Service) Karen Kelleher Hull City Council (Youth Development
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Service) David Longthorn Hull Friends of the Earth Katie McMaster Humbercare Shaun Turner ICT Club leader Natalie Hill Minerva Project Brenda Elm Newland Allotments Kim Hepple Pet Respect Marina Hartley Pet Respect Places for People Lynne Jackson
Jeannie Webster Rainbow Community Garden Andy Paxton SEARCH Ian Jakulis The Conservation Volunteers The Green Estate Project / Thornton Urban Patrick Burchfield Gardeners Helen Rhodes Third Sector Solutions Karen Hamshaw-Hart Thomas Ferens Academy Lausanne Tranter Transition Hull Mick Marston UK Federation of City Farms James Hartwell Unity in Community Jennifer Nielson University of Hull Harriet Linfoot Yorkshire Wildlife Trust Glin Clixby Citysafe Andy Steel EMS Karen Tozer Groundwork Mr Cooper
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A pledge to support the City Farm - Responses to the Consultation event on 28 th November 2013
I/my organisation think that a city farm in Hull would be an asset to the city and would like to be involved by
Name Organisation Activity – Key to numbers below 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Andy Steele EMS Green X X X X Prosperity Kate Timebank X X X X X X X X X X X X X Macdonald D. Longthorn Hull FOE X David Hull City X X X Shepherdson Council Sam Chegwin CASE X X X X X X X X X Harriet Linfort Yorkshire X X X X X X X X X X X Wildlife Trust James Hartwell Unity in X X X X Community Helen Rhodes Third Sector X X Solutions Jenifer Neilson University of X Hull David Pearson University of X Hull/York Medical School Ian Jakulis TCV X X X X Sue Alvis Amazing Play X Lesley Bellerby Densholm Care X Farm Pat Burchfield Goodwin X X X X X X X Development Trust Natalie Hill Minerva X X X X X X X Project Katie X X X X X X X X X McMaster Laurance Transition Hull X X X X X X X X X Tranter Jeannie Rainbow X X X X X Webster Community Garden Brenda Elm Newland X X X X X Allotment Association Barry Cooper Welwyn X X X X X X X Consultancy Karen Taylor @the edge X X Andy Paxton Search –Living X X X X X X X Better for Less Mark Smith Case training X X X X X X X X X X X X
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Services Zakria Sudanese X X X X X X X X X X Mohamed Community F Siegers Refugee X X X X X X X X X X X Council Arsene Dr Congo X X X X X Katumba Raj.S.Ghuman Sikh Temple X X X Ahmed Ikweem Sudanese X X X X X X Community Tuyeh Dafur X X X Mohammed Dawada Jatta Bameem X X X X X X Michelle Hessel Road X Watson Network Kelly Kelleher Youth X X X X Development Service Jan Boyd EMS Ltd X X X X X Lee Ann Food 4 Hull X X X X X X X X X X X X X Williams Paul Hanson Arthur Street X X X X X X Traders Totals 16 13 9 8 12 18 15 15 17 24 15 14 12 9
Key to Activities
1. Learning about vegetables and how to grow them 2. Learning about meat and how it is produced 3. Buying produce 4. Selling produce – please give details below 5. Using a café 6. Volunteering 7. Contributing staff time 8. Delivering training 9. Receiving training 10. Attending events around food issues 11. Food markets 12. Food related competitions 13. Using the venue to run own events/activities or hold meetings 14. Other
* Boxes highlighted in black indicate forms that did not have option 13
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Comments collected from pledge forms
‘Planting Wild Fruit trees and raising awareness of’
‘Cooperative – locally run’
‘Access by staff and service users with learning disabilities, may be able to support with gardening work’
‘Teacher training centre – Project [centre?] of Excellence’
‘TCV…. coordination of volunteers, events, projects etc…..’
‘Promoting community gardens that exist within local communities’
‘city map that locates local projects and details - well produced into leaflet’
‘Link as a rural care farm to a city centre one’
‘Organic Produce’
Use as rehabilitation, learning and community spirits’
‘Would like to see introduction of permaculture principles and design into project’
‘Involving volunteers, creating wildlife areas’
‘Skill share’
‘Food Safety, Health and Safety and training’
‘involving medical student in health outreach work with hard to reach populations’
‘anything creative/out of the ordinary/visionary/exciting’
‘love the city farm idea’
‘international celebration; exchanging international growing cultures and cooking’
‘I’d like to know more about fast food and health’
‘the Sikh Temple cooks food every week for the community and would buy produce on a regular basis, city farm is a fantastic idea’
‘We would like to run a small café/shop buying and selling produce from the farm and other local produce. I also have experience of growing to share and for training’
‘Hub for food related issues. Selling of Produce –Food4Hull support sustainable food production in Hull (+surrounding area) + would want to help ensure access to food in café/shop (eg Arthers)’
‘working with young people, being able to come along, share skills and be inspired’
‘supporting y/p to become involved in feasibility study and city farm when up and running, not all y/p attend school so would not necessarily become involved via that route. We could support disengaged young people & encourage them to become involved’
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Appendix 2 – Learning and Design photographs
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Appendix 3 – References
Cahill K (2002) Who Owns Britain: the hidden facts behind land ownership in the UK and Ireland. Canongate Books, Edinburgh.
Gross, N (2007) ‘Pragmatism, phenomenology and twentieth century American sociology’, in C. Calhoun (ed.), Sociology in America: a History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 183–224.
Hale, J,, Knapp, C., Bardwell, L., Buchenau, M., Marshall, J., Sancar, F., Litt, J. (2011) “Connecting food environments and health through the relational nature of aesthetics: Gaining insight through the community gardening experience”. Social Science & Medicine. 72(11). 1853–1863.
Leck C (2013) The Impact of Care Farming in the UK, PhD Thesis, The University of Worcester.
Mind (2013) Feel better outside, feel better inside: Ecotherapy for mental wellbeing, resilience and recovery. A briefing for Health and Wellbeing Board Chairs. http://www.mind.org.uk/media/399857/Ecotherapy-briefing-health-wellbeing-boards.pdf
Nicol R et al, (2007) Outdoor education in Scotland: A summary of recent research, Scottish National Heritage
Quayle H (2007) The true value of community farms and gardens: social, environmental, health and economic. Federation of City Farms and Community Gardens. http://www.farmgarden.org.uk/component/content/918/247-true-value-of-community-farms-and- gardens Smit, J., A. Ratta, and J. Nasr. (2001). Urban Agriculture: Food, Jobs, and Sustainable Cities. United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), New York, NY. http://jacsmit.com/book.html
Varley-Winter O (2011)Roots to work: Developing employability through community food-growing and urban agriculture projects, Summary report. City & Guilds Centre for Skills Development, London http://www.skillsdevelopment.org/pdf/Urban-agriculture-research-summary-report.pdf
Hine R, Peacock J and Pretty J (2008) Care farming in the UK: Evidence and Opportunities. Report for the National Care Farming Initiative (UK. Department of Biological Sciences, University of Essex http://www.carefarminguk.org/sites/carefarminguk.org/files/Care%20Farming%20in%20the%20UK %20-%20Essex%20Uni%20Report.pdf
Bragg, R. (2013a) Care farming in the UK – Key Facts and Figures. Summary report for Natural England. Colchester, University of Essex.
Cardiff Metropolitan University Press release (2013) Cardiff Met’s gardening research unearths encouraging results for wellbeing in later life. http://www3.cardiffmet.ac.uk/English/News/Pages/CardiffMetsgardeningresearchunearthsencoura gingresultsforwellbeinginlaterlife.aspx
Adam James (2012) How Urban Farming Can Transform Our Cities — And Our Agricultural System. Think Progress, online journal.
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http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/05/29/491271/how-urban-farming-can-transform-our-cities- and-our-agricultural-system/
Information on Contaminated Land
North West Food and Health Taskforce (2002) GROWING FOOD - HOW SAFE IS YOUR LAND? How to Assess and Deal with Potential Land Contamination: Guidance for Communities and Individuals Involved in Food Growing. Centre for Public Health. Liverpool.
Yorkshire and Humberside Pollution Advisory Council (2012) Development on Land Affected by Contamination: Technical Guidance for Developers, Landowners and Consultants.
Yorkshire and Humberside Pollution Advisory Council (2013) VERIFICATION REQUIREMENTS FOR COVER SYSTEMS: Technical Guidance for Developers, Landowners and Consultants.
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Head Office: The GreenHouse, Hereford Street, Bristol BS3 4NA
Tel: 0117 923 1800 Fax: 0117 923 1900 e-mail: [email protected]
Patron: HRH The Prince of Wales www.farmgarden.org.uk Charity Number 294494 Company Number 2011023
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