Whether it’s redeveloping street markets or building over allotments, the planning system probably has one of the most crucial effects on the food chain. In 2005 Sustain and the Food Commission undertook some research for the London Development Agency on how local authority planners in London could increase peoples' access to healthy, fresh and affordable food.
Go to http://www.sustainweb.org/localactiononfood/food_and_planning/ for more information on Sustain's work on food and planning.
1) How London’s planners can improve access to healthy and affordable food.
2) Improving London’s food access will take a bit of planning!
The London Plan is a document that will influence the lives of all Londoners, in one way or another, over the coming years. It is the pivotal planning policy document for the Greater London Authority, setting out the details of an aspiration to make life better for London’s vibrant, diverse, and ever-growing population.
Of particular importance for those working in the fields of food, health and sustainability is the London Plan’s recognition that health and sustainability issues lie at the heart of the planning process. The London Plan states: “Health is a critical determinant of the quality of all our lives. Factors such as access to leisure facilities, fresh food or decent living conditions can all lead to healthier, longer lives. Planning decisions have the potential to influence these factors.”
Yet many people working in the food sector are unaware of the opportunities the London Plan presents to support and create markets for sustainably produced healthy food for Londoners. The opportunities are there for the taking, and Sustain and the Food Commission have been working with the London Development Agency to signpost how these opportunities could be exploited.
There are many aspects to this work, which we will continue to report on in future issues of Jellied Eel. Here, we focus on how planners could help to support local food retail to improve access to healthy and affordable food, especially for low-income communities. People working in Primary Care Trusts and in the health, food manufacturing and farming sectors might also read this as a shopping list of the types of measures they could expect from planners, to create and maintain a healthy and sustainable food supply.
Problems of food access are often manifested at a very local level. In areas of low economic activity, associated with a high proportion of low-income residents, traders selling food may need additional help – sometimes publicly funded – to help them overcome hurdles to sustaining their businesses. If neighbourhood food retailers are valued as part of strategic plans to tackle food availability and health inequalities, then they may qualify for preferential treatment and support from public funds to help them overcome barriers and set them on a more viable footing. Local authorities can intervene where the market system has failed to deliver what is needed and is unlikely to do so without incentives. Planners can help by making conditions more conducive for traders to return.
Sometimes the solutions lie in coordinated support for retailers who might otherwise work in isolation, at the very margins of profitability. For instance, local authority planning and regeneration staff can help to coordinate retail associations that work together to reduce the high rates of crime and the burden of bureaucracy that falls most heavily on small businesses. Planners can also work with community organisations, such as housing associations, to ensure that new-build houses and warehouse conversions are designed to incorporate good food access into the very fabric of communities – ‘building out’ familiar food access problems right from the start.
Some local authorities have considered rates holidays for neighbourhood shops that provide an essential service in terms of providing nutritious and affordable food, and turning over vacant premises to community food projects such as food co-operatives that might otherwise struggle in difficult and insecure circumstances.
Small retailers can also benefit from marketing and technical training, but once again, they are unlikely to be able to do this on their own, without coordination from the local authority or from enterprise agencies, within the framework of a planning strategy that values their contribution to health and sustainability. This might include action to protect food shops from change of use, improve bus routes to shopping areas, and the channelling of regeneration money into supporting food access projects, such as providing coordinated transport for elderly people who might not otherwise be able to get to the shops.
All of this work is possible, practical and indeed already in operation in some London boroughs. Some borough policies already give support to food retail through a range of practical and financial measures. For instance, Islington’s Unitary Development Policy (UDP) – an especially far-reaching example – allows encouragement of: “initiatives to provide local shopping facilities, for example support for co-operatives or voluntary schemes, establishing mobile shops, street trading or other measures which meet local residents’ needs. Financial assistance could be provided, if resources are available. Support could include rate or rent grants/loans, improvement grants to shops, and environmental improvements to shopping areas. Advice to shopkeepers and liaison with local residents groups are other activities that can usefully support the Council’s policies. In particular practical management advice to independent shopkeepers may be available from local business enterprise agencies; encouraging the use of vacant space above shops for other purposes, particularly residential use.”
But work is also needed at a more strategic level, to support the capital’s food system. For instance, street markets are a crucial part of the food landscape in London – often providing healthy and affordable food to diverse ethnic communities who are most likely to experience food access problems. In Camden, for example, the local authority has recognised the contribution of street markets to wellbeing and offered low-rate or free stalls to traders selling healthy five-a-day produce to local people.
Crucially, planners and regeneration teams can also support the wholesale food markets that are the lifeblood of a thriving food economy in London. These serve the needs of local retailers, food projects, caterers and the restaurant trade, but they are often not included in borough food strategies. This may be because they are not located within borough boundaries, or because strategy development staff may not be aware of the reliance of local food providers on the wholesale trade. However, there are several very large wholesale markets in London, with many hundreds of traders and producers using them each day. They play a crucial role in London’s food chain, and may be especially important in the supply of quality food at an affordable price.
The good news is that measures to support healthy and sustainable food trading are backed by regional and national policy, since work to improve the accessibility and sustainability of the capital’s food supply can deliver on a wide range of social, environmental and regeneration objectives as part of the London Development Agency’s commitment to a sustainable food and farming strategy for London. The opportunities are there for the taking.
How London’s planners can improve access to healthy and affordable food is the subject of a draft document submitted by the Food Commission and Sustain to the Food Strategy Unit of the London Development Agency. The LDA will be consulting on its plans for sustainable food and farming for the Capital over the coming months.
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