Council Executive have approved the West Lothian Food Growing Strategy 2020- 2025, which identifies sites that can be considered for different kinds of food growing, promotes community involvement and will help the council to plan for potential future growing sites.
As part of the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015, each local authority is required to prepare a Food Growing Strategy and review it every five years.
The West Lothian Food Growing Strategy highlights the benefits of food growing, lists all the potential methods of community growing, and provides a summary of the existing community food growing position in West Lothian.
It also highlights the current barriers to food growing and outlines key actions to make it easier for people in West Lothian to grow their own food in a way that is most suitable for them.
The Strategy was put together with substantial input from local people, food growing groups and local organisations, who have a fundamental role to play in bringing the strategy to life and sustaining food growing initiatives throughout the area.
Executive councillor for the environment Tom Conn said: "I welcome the adoption of the West Lothian Food Growing Strategy, which clearly sets out how we will support community growing locally.
"Community growing has huge benefits to our society, including keeping people active, social mixing and of course, producing healthy food on our doorstep.
"It also sets out the processes for setting up new growing sites where there is demand, with council services working together to support potential new locations."
For more details of community food growing in West Lothian, including allotment sites, community gardens and contacts, please visit Food Growing
