Guidance Notes 2010
London Wide Support

Download the guidance notes as a 23kb PDF

Capital Growth aims to support businesses, community organisations and other groups in London who demonstrate that they can best meet the criteria (see below).

It is intended that we will support a variety of new food growing projects, hosted by a diverse range of people and organisations. We aim to offer in-kind support to new food growing projects.

Support criteria
The purpose of the campaign is to provide easily accessible support, to help people to initiate and run new food growing projects in London that are for community benefit. Projects can be for commercial gain but must provide a community benefit in all cases.

Who can apply?
Applicants for support can be new or established community-led groups or businesses. That could mean charities, allotment associations (please note that becoming a Capital Growth project does not secure allotment tenancy where it doesn’t already exist), business associations, schools or food access groups but it is not limited to these. All applicant groups must be based in Greater London (all 33 London boroughs) and their application should be used to support the implementation of a food growing project that benefits a community.

We regret that we can only support spaces in Greater London. If your organisation is based outside London but your food growing space is within London we may still be able to support the project. You are advised to contact us before applying. Email capitalgrowth@sustainweb.org or call 020 7837 1228.

What can be supported?
For spaces seeking support, the following criteria must be met;

• The space should be used for growing food, and be at least 3 metres squared. 
• The space should be located within one of the London boroughs. 
• The space should be a new food growing space not established before 1st January, 2009.  We will consider including sites that have been used to grow food before this date, as long as it has not been cultivated recently.  Although we will consider new spaces within a wider site which already has food growing areas, we will give priority to distinct new food growing sites.
• The food growing project should benefit the local or wider community. Whilst we support the principle of growing food solely for commercial or private benefit, for a space to be eligible for financial and other support under the Capital Growth campaign, it must also have clear benefit to the community. We are, however, interested in hearing from communities who might like to develop local food trading or bartering schemes. If in doubt, get in touch.

Timetable
Applications can be submitted at any time.  We will then aim to let you know if you have been successful within 4 weeks of this date.

Keeping it simple
We won’t ask you for a detailed evaluation of your project but successful projects will be asked to update their progress via progress reports and the online forum on Project Dirt (this is a condition of funding). Your comments may be included in a final project report to be prepared by LFL.

Application Support
On receipt of your application form a Capital Growth volunteer will be in contact to organise a visit to the growing space. A Project Officer will also be available to answer your enquiries. For further information please contact Seb Mayfield or Sarah Williams: capitalgrowth@sustainweb.org or call 020 7837 1228. The Project Officers from Capital Growth are expected to visit several of the projects receiving support by Capital Growth. We shall endeavour to contact you in advance if we intend to visit your project.

Question by question: Some guidelines

1. This should be the full name of the person who will be the main point of contact. 

2. Position within the organisation of the main contact

3. This should be the full name of the organisation, if any, who is responsible for the space / project. 

4. Please state the name of your growing project, if applicable.

5. This is the address of the applicant. Please state the borough where you are located and provide contact details for the main person who will be involved in this project.  Please note that this is the address to which LFL will send any important written materials about this grant.

6. The full address of the food growing space should be provided here (if different from applying body)
 
7. Size of growing space: please complete this giving the size in square metres.  This is important, as we will be able to monitor how much space has been turned over to food growing!

8. Please state if this is a new food growing or the expansion of an existing food growing project.

9. This short description of your space may be used in the public domain. You should aim to:

• Describe the type of project you intend to initiate
• Explain clearly what you will do and how you will do it
• Include any social and geographical information you have about your site.

Capital Growth criteria: Please refer to ‘Who can apply’ and ‘What can be Supported’ when completing this question.

In addition:

• Tell us about your experience of running similar projects if relevant (priority will not be given to people who have worked on similar projects in the past, so it’s ok if this is your first time)

10. How many people are involved in your project? E.g. growers, volunteers and helpers

11. Volunteers, please note that we cannot guarantee that we will be able to find you suitable volunteers.

12. State if your group will require training. At this stage we can point you in the direction of existing training opportunities.  We hope to offer tailor-made horticultural and enterprise training through our partners in the future, and we will notify anyone who has registered interest here.

13. Capital Growth wants to encourage sharing of expertise and resources amongst projects. You will not be committing yourself by filling in this question.

14. Lease: The lease is important, as we need to know that the food growing space project that we are supporting is secure for a reasonable length of time.  Details of who owns the lease is important as it may affect the project’s longevity.  We do not require a minimum length of lease for the project to receive support.  However we do need to know that the growers are aware of the length of the lease, are happy with it (for example there may only be 2 years remaining) and have planned the project so there is a definite conclusion to coincide with the end of the lease, if necessary. Terms of Agreement If your project is successful you will be required to provide us with a signed copy of a Terms of Agreement between grower and landowner. If your project does not already have such a document and you require guidance, please contact Seb Mayfield at seb@sustainweb.org or 0207 837 1228. 

15.  Soil testing: If this is something that you haven’t done to date but think that it is necessary you may need to add the cost of a test to your funding bid.  A negative test result may also result in you needing to change your project plan.  We can give you advice on how to go about getting a soil contamination test.

If the soil has been tested, please give details of the process/results.

16. Commercial gain: We will support food growing projects that are set up for commercial gain as long as there is an obvious community benefit at the same time. 

If you are intending to use the land for commercial gain please provide as much information as you can so that we can understand how this fits in with the local community.

17. Insurance: groups running food growing projects should secure public liability insurance to protect against injury. You may need to add the cost of insurance to your funding bid.  We can give you advice on how to go about getting insurance.  

18.  Referee: please give the full name and contact details of one person who can be a referee for you/your organisation. This person should not be directly involved with your project, but should have known you or your organisation professionally for at least two years.  

IMPORTANT

See the website for further information and please feel free to contact the Capital Growth team at London Food Link if you require any additional help in completing this application form.   

Seb Mayfield / Sarah Williams: Project Officers
seb@sustainweb.org
Tel: 020 7837 1228
London Food Link
94 White Lion Street, London N1 9PF

www.capitalgrowth.org
http://www.londonfoodlink.org/

 Apply for 'Capital Growth - London Wide' support