Empty car parks to sprout vegetable plots

A London council is converting its disused spaces into areas for local people to grow produce in an attempt to make its food supply sustainable by 2050.

Hundreds of unused and abandoned spaces in Enfield are to be converted into fruit and vegetable plots in the hope of the area becoming "London's breadbasket".

Informal growing spaces around the borough, such as car parks, disused garages and empty spaces around blocks of flats, are to be converted into vegetable plots, while two of its rundown parks will become community orchards. The scheme is part of a borough-wide strategy announced today with the aim of reinvigorating food networks and improving sustainability.

"The potential Enfield has for helping to feed itself and London is huge," said council leader Mike Rye. "We have a great agricultural and market garden heritage to build on - in years to come Enfield could become known as the capital's breadbasket."

As part of the £50,000 council-funded scheme, up to 120 trees - including apple, pear, plum and hazelnut - will be planted across two sites.

Community groups will decide what they want to plant and whether they want to sell the produce or eat it themselves.

The first site will be on a rundown plot in Ponders Green, which will act as a pilot for working out how the food networks and community food projects could work.

Enfield has about a tenth of London's 30,000 allotments, but many have become overgrown. The sustainability plans will offer tenants a year's free rent to reinvigorate these allotments with plans for a food market and an urban farm.

Also as part of the scheme, pupils at Houndsfield Primary School are growing their own potatoes, cherry tomatoes, cabbages and corn in converted flower beds in Jubilee Park in Edmonton.

They are working with an allotment officer and will eat what they grow as part of their school meals. If the project is a success, it will be extended to other schools in the borough in the lead-up to a Food Legacy Day in 2011, on which every school in Enfield will eat locally-grown food.

Evening Standard is backing policies that help make Londoners become more self-sufficient as part of the Grow Your Own campaign.

Geoff Stokes, secretary of the National Society of Allotment and Leisure Gardens, said Londoners do not need an allotment to grow their own food.

He encourages residents to seek out unused spaces around their homes to dig up for planting. He said: "As long as soil can be dug over with a spade and it's a green site, we support any land being turned over for food."