Vegetables and fruit could be grown on traffic verges, parks and car parks in Brighton and Hove if a groundbreaking new scheme is launched here.
Brighton and Hove City Council is considering adopting the Incredible Edible scheme, pioneered by northern towns such as Todmorden in Lancashire.
Calderdale Council has licensed patches of land for food growing, including a recreation ground, police station, car park, roadside verges and a canal wharf.
In October, Harvest Brighton and Hove won £500,000 from the Lottery’s Local Food Fund to increase the number of people growing food locally, part of which they intend to use to create new vegetable gardens from unused plots.
Now, the council here is surveying available land and interest from residents, with an eye on reducing the current eight-year waiting list for allotments.
Council leader and sustainability committee chairman Mary Mears said: “At the moment we have more potential gardeners than gardens. So this is a piece of lateral thinking which we hope will help to meet that demand.
“During the war every spare scrap of land was pressed into service.
“Maybe we could rekindle that ‘Dig for Victory’ spirit.”
Vic Else, director of Brighton and Hove Food Partnership, said: “Harvest Brighton and Hove aims to increase the amount of food grown in the city by making more land available on which to grow and increasing local people’s skills and confidence in growing food through training and support.
“We welcome the council’s support in identifying land that they own to be used for community food growing.
“We are looking forward to seeing food plots in unexpected corners of the city.
“They will both look good and taste good.”
