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Resolved
 

(1)         
That the following motion be adopted:
 
“The cost-of-living crisis has highlighted the need for
access to enough fresh food, especially fruit and vegetables. This
has been worsened by the lack of available allotments and communal
gardens.
 
Greater access to growing spaces would better support CDC in
ensuring it places the health and well-being of its residents at
the heart of its policy making by increasing the availability of
fresh locally produced food at an affordable price. 
Such
initiatives can reduce pressures on NHS and social care whilst
increasing community cohesion, tackling loneliness and isolation,
and providing for the healthy food needs of their
neighbourhoods.
 
We
recognise that officers already work with our communities to
encourage them to come together to develop local growing spaces in
areas of under-used publicly owned land and that we have endorsed
the countywide Food Strategy. But that we can always do
more.
 
This
council therefore calls on the Executive to,
 
1.   
Identify council owned land suitable for community
cultivation and facilitate the production of a publicly available
map of such sites.

 
2.   
Adopt a ‘Right to Grow’ policy whilst
continuing to work with Cherwell Collective and other community
organisations to encourage the adoption of such land for growing
schemes by means of a simple licence at no direct cost to the
community.
 
3.   
Consider ways to encourage developers to include
community growing spaces in all new developments and, where
practical, on land awaiting development.
 
4.   
Write to all Cherwell MPs asking them to support the
national ’Right to Grow’ campaign.”