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. A City Farm for Hull: Feasibility Study, December 2013 1 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. A City Farm for Hull: Feasibility Study, December 2013 2 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. A City Farm for Hull: Feasibility Study, December 2013 3 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. A City Farm for Hull: Feasibility Study, December 2013 4 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.