Councillors find edible crops project hard to swallow

The seeds have been sewn for the idea of a community project, but have not yet borne fruit

THE potential for members of the community to harvest food on Newbury Town Council land has been met with a lukewarm reaction from town councillors.

On Monday (August 1), members of the town council's community services committee discussed progress on a possible edible crops project in the town, which was first suggested back in 2009 by the winner of a Sustainable Newbury competition, Jeremy Gorbold.

Since then, various attempts have been made to progress the idea of harvesting fruit and vegetables within open spaces in the town, although all without success.

At the meeting on Monday, town councillor Gabrielle McGarvey (Lib Dem, St Johns) said: “I think this is a really good idea and it is really important that young people in particular understand the link between the soil and the earth around them and the food on their plate.

“If we were to take this forward I would be thinking about the end product and the interest and dynamism for young people to get involved, perhaps through education projects or a food festival.”

However, she said she had concerns over insurance and health and safety issues, adding that she would like the council to investigate how these issues had been overcome in other areas where similar projects had been set up.

Meanwhile, Howard Bairstow (Con, Falkland) said he felt the idea was “fanciful” as he said it was likely to take up a lot of council officer time, particularly with the maintenance and nurturing of all the crops.

But the chairwoman of the committee, Martha Vickers (Lib Dem, Northcroft) said the idea was to involve people in the community, adding that support from allotmenteers may be an option.

As a result, councillors resolved to research other similar projects, define local open spaces where the project could be implemented and attempt to create a community-led working group to help move the project forward.