Finding and Securing Land for Community Growing

Training event, Edinburgh, 29 March 2012. Use the link at the bot­tom of the page to book.

Are you exper­i­en­cing dif­fi­culties in try­ing to find and secure land for your com­munity grow­ing project?

Are you facing obstacles in the plan­ning sys­tem and uphill battles nego­ti­at­ing with landown­ers and agree­ing on the terms of your lease? 

The Community Land Advisory Service (CLAS) has been estab­lished to provide sup­port and advice to com­munity groups and landown­ers to secure addi­tion­al land for com­munity garden­ing and to facil­it­ate nego­ti­ations between com­munity groups and landowners.

Our Top Tips train­ing ses­sion seeks to draw on the exper­i­ences of plan­ning, leg­al and land spe­cial­ists to advice on these issues. The train­ing will be par­ti­cip­at­ive and will draw on real life issues and exper­i­ences of the par­ti­cipants, using case stud­ies and examples of good practice.

Through par­ti­cip­at­ive and inter­act­ive train­ing, the day aims to look at Top Tips for:

1.    Thinking cre­at­ively and stra­tegic­ally to find land

2.    The next steps once a poten­tial piece of land has been found

3.    Looking at, inter­pret­ing and get­ting involved in the devel­op­ment plans and policies of your loc­al Council area

4.    Approach your coun­cil – both coun­cil­lors and planners

5.    Obtaining the sup­port of your neighbours

6.    Approaching landowners

7.    Securing a lease for the land 

Trainers:

Sheila Hobbs, Advisor with the CLAS

Sheila has a degree in Environmental Planning and has more than 20 years of exper­i­ence work­ing as a Chartered Town Planner work­ing both for loc­al plan­ning author­it­ies and the private sec­tor, includ­ing estab­lish­ing her own plan­ning con­sultancy before join­ing CLAS. She is exper­i­enced in nego­ti­at­ing with a wide range of organ­isa­tions on numer­ous issues relat­ing to vari­ous types of land use.

Morag Angus, Advisor with the CLAS

Morag has been a Chartered Surveyor for more than twenty years, work­ing for both loc­al and nation­al gov­ern­ment agen­cies, begin­ning in the private sec­tor as a Land Surveyor and mov­ing on to re-qual­i­fy as prop­erty sur­vey­or.  She has acted for Landlords, Tenants, loc­al and nation­al gov­ern­ment and a range of small com­munity groups, nego­ti­at­ing for, valu­ing and man­aging land and build­ings across Scotland.

Other speak­ers await­ing con­firm­a­tion. 

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The exact pro­gramme for the day will depend on par­ti­cipants’ needs and level of under­stand­ing. Please tell about your land-related issue when you reserve your place so we can struc­ture the ses­sion around mat­ters that con­cern you.

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