Frequently Asked Questions
For Community Growing Groups
Part Two: Hints & Tips On Finding Land
Introduction
The aim of this pack of FAQs is to provide general advice to community groups on frequently
raised issues relating to finding, securing and sustaining land for formal and informal amenity
open space, gardening and food growing. For ease of reference, the generic term ‘community
garden’ will be used throughout. This is second in a series of five FAQs for New Community
Groups – see the end of this document for further details.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: How do we decide what type of land to search for?
A: You should consider the main priorities for your group – accessibility, type of gardening
required (e.g. formal allotments, temporary growing space, wildlife garden, play area etc.) as this
will provide you with some general direction for the size of land you require and other
characteristics such as:
 Location
 Orientation
 Access
 Quality of soil
 Relationship with neighbours.
Q: How can we find suitable land?
A: There are a number of different ways for you to search for suitable plots of land. Cast your net
wide in the first instance (in terms of distance and variety of types of land). A sifting process will
be required later as you will need to balance your different priorities. A wide range of advice on
finding land is available on the Finding Land section of the CLAS website.
To search for potentially suitable land you could try some, or all, of the following:

Scout out your local area, looking for sites which you may find acceptable
www.communitylandadvice.org.uk
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
Talk to local people and other community groups as they are generally a source of
important information about local sites

Place signs in your local library, post office, health centre, leisure centre and community
centre requesting land for a community garden

Use an internet-based mapping tool, such as Google Earth to identify undeveloped/open
land within your search area. Be flexible in your approach. This could include:
- open spaces
- rear gardens
- farmland
- formal parks and gardens
- local schools, colleges and universities
- verges and landscaped areas by roads
- flower beds
- areas around public/semi-public buildings (e.g. churches, museums, libraries etc)
- landscaped areas associated with developments (e.g. housing, offices, retail parks etc.)
- redundant or vacant sites, or sites awaiting development
- railway stations/cuttings
- golf courses.

Search the internet for organisations which offer a ‘brokerage’ service between
landowners and groups requiring land for community gardening, for example Landshare
(UK-wide) or SAGE (Scotland only). You can also find further help on the CLAS website.

Look at documents held at your local council office (or on its website) including:
o Plans and policies of the planning department - these identify land with
opportunity for future development
o The open space strategy - this may indicate all open space land within the council
area, where there are areas of shortfall or over-provision of open space and the
council’s strategy for the future of open space
o Allotment strategy - this may identify potentially available allotments and the
council’s approach to the provision of allotments.

Contact local businesses in your area that may act on behalf of landowners, for example
local estate agents, architects and landscape architects. They may be able to point you in
the direction of a landowner who has land available on a temporary or permanent basis.

Public and semi-public organisations may have sites available for community gardening
use. Organisations to approach include:
o Local authorities – See Direct Gov website for UK local council listings
o Local NHS Trusts - Search for NHS contacts in England or Scotland
o Housing Associations – Search for housing associations across the UK
o The Forestry Commission
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o The National Trust for UK or Scotland
Other country-specific information sources to find suitable land include:
Scotland - Greenspace Scotland has an interactive map of all green space in Scotland and the
Vacant and Derelict Land Database, on the Scottish Government website, contains details of
vacant and derelict land by local council area.
Q: How do I find out who owns the land?
A: If you identify a local site but are not sure who owns it, then try the following:

Ask at neighbouring properties for the owner’s contact details – local knowledge is always
useful so you can widen your search to include local estate owners, farmers, business
people, church members etc.

If the land is isolated, erect a notice on the land stating that you would like to start a
community garden and provide contact details for the landlord to get in touch

Post notices in local newspapers, on notice boards and at the local library stating that you
want to start a community garden and requesting information on who owns the site

Contact the Property Department, Rates Assessor and District Valuer of your local council
to request information on land ownership

The Land Registry’s Aerial Land Locator is a paid-for service which may help some
searches.

In Scotland, apply to the Registers of Scotland for a formal search for who owns the land.
There will be a cost for this service.
Q: How should we approach the landowner or his representative?
A: Make sure whenever you approach a landowner, or any person that acts for that landowner,
that you provide as much information as possible on your community group and your intention
for the land. It is important that you appear to be a well-organised group with experience in
community gardening (either directly or through transferrable skills) and that you will not be a
future burden on the landowner. Be polite, friendly and assertive.
Do try to consider what benefits you could offer the landowner. Put yourself in the shoes of the
landowner and ask yourself:

“what reasons would convince me to support this project”

“why should I allow the community group to start a community garden on this piece of
land”

“what concerns would I have”.
By seeing things from the landowner’s perspective, it will give you a greater understanding
during negotiations (NB: You can find further information about Negotiating on the CLAS
website.
www.communitylandadvice.org.uk
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If the landowner is a public body (eg local authority, NHS hospital, university), it will have its own
set of aims and objectives. Show how your community garden will positively address those aims
and objectives, at little cost to the landowner.
If it is a private landowner, try to think of ways to show how the community garden will bring
benefit (these questions could equally apply to public bodies too):

Will it improve the appearance of the land?

Will it reduce or take away the need for the landowner to maintain the land?

Will you be able to offer financial benefit?

Will there be security / safety improvements?

Through partnership approach, will you be able to offer support as a local community to
the landowners development project?
Q: If we have found more than one site, how do we decide which to concentrate on?
A: The first rule is – don’t put all your eggs in one basket! It is worthwhile considering a number
of different sites to maintain flexibility as your first choice site may not eventually be successful.
You will need to identify all the criteria necessary to make your community garden a successful
project and the list of potential criteria is lengthy. Remember to be flexible. For example, a site
may seem unsuitable due to soil contamination….but can you use innovative methods to
overcome this, such as raised beds or containers.
Issues you may need to consider are:

Location: Is the site convenient and safe for the local community to reach? How will users
get to the site? How visible is it? How easily can it be accessed by foot, public transport
and / or car?

Accessibility: Is the access too steep or unsuitable to allow access for all, including
wheelchair users?

Soil condition and contamination: Is the soil good for growing? Is it contaminated? Are
there remedial measures to overcome the poor conditions?

Orientation: Can sufficient sunlight / daylight get to the site?

Availability of services: Do you need any services – water, electricity, toilets, waste
disposal etc? Are they available? Can they be provided at reasonable cost?

Land Use: Do we need planning permission to change the use of the land? Will this be
controversial? Will the time/cost be unreasonable?

Availability of parking: Do you need any? How much land should be given over to
parking? Would parking prove contentious with neighbours?
www.communitylandadvice.org.uk
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
Neighbouring uses: Ask yourself the question ‘would I like this community garden next to
my property?’ Could you cause nuisance to your neighbour and if so, what measures will
you need to put into place to overcome the problem? Or vice versa, could the
neighbouring uses cause a nuisance and what will you need to do?

Timescale: Will the land be available to start your project in an appropriate timescale? Is
the landowner likely to be able to let you have it for a long enough period?
Q: We want to create a shortlist of identified sites. What are the best site evaluation
techniques we can use?
A: Establish what your key criteria are for the site and then assess how well your sites fit these
criteria. For example, if you are looking to establish a community garden as an amenity and play
space for young children then good easy access to the site will be a key criteria. So sites with
good foot and public transport access may make the shortlist, but those only accessible via a
dangerous dual carriageway would be rejected.
After eliminating sites this way, you will need to consider means of critically assessing remaining
sites to decide which ones to pursue. Ways of doing this could include:
 Use common sense – re-examine your priorities to ensure they are fit for purpose
 Use a scoring system and pursue the sites which achieve the top scores. For example in
the example below, accessibility, location and neighbours are the top three priorities.
Parking is the least important:
Criteria
Max Score
Score each criteria based on its
importance to you. In this case,
accessibility is the priority, then
location etc.
Location
20
Accessibility
30
Soil Condition
10
Orientation
10
Parking
5
Neighbours
15
Time
10
Total
100
Best Site
Site 1
Site 2 Site 3
Score each site for each
criteria based on how
much it meets that
criteria
15
20
15
10
20
25
2
5
8
8
5
5
2
3
4
5
10
8
8
9
5
50
72
70
3
1
2
There are certain facts should you should remember when doing this exercise:

Be flexible in your consideration as it is most likely that you will need to balance different
priorities, as in the above example.

Do not put all efforts into only one site…there may be other reasons why this one site
may not proceed and then you will need to start the process from beginning. In the
example above, site 1 and site 2 would be worth pursuing.
www.communitylandadvice.org.uk
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
The more people in your group who carry out this sifting exercise, the greater the
differing opinions and the harder it may be to reach consensus on the preferred sites.

Do not initially be constrained by site boundaries. The best sites may be achieved through
joining two or more sites currently separated by some form of boundary.

Do not initially be constrained by land ownership:
o You could bring two landowners into agreement (e.g. local council and farmer).
o A landowner may previously have expressed negative thoughts about community
use of his land. By showing your commitment and the wide range of benefits you
could offer, he may be more positive with your project.
Still having Problems Finding and Securing Land?
If, after trying the above, you are still coming across problems finding or securing land, please
contact us at CLAS via www.communitylandadvice.org.uk
To allow us to consider your situation and give you the most appropriate and quickest advice, it
would really help us if you could give us as much information on your attempts to find and
secure land. An email with a short written summary of your actions relating to each question,
plans and photos of the sites, file notes of talks with landowners / their representatives and your
local council, copies of correspondence, information from the local plans and policies etc. would
be good. The more background information we have, the better our response to you.
Further Information
Other FAQs for New Community Groups
This document is the second in a series of five FAQs for new community growing groups, which
are split as follows:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Introduction, Context and Benefits (Version 2, Feb 2014)
Hints and Tips on Finding Land (Version 2, Feb 2014)
Costs (Version 2, Feb 2014)
Permissions & controls (Version 2, Feb 2014)
Leases (Version 2, Feb 2014)
To read other FAQs, and find other information on community land issues, please visit
www.communitylandadvice.org.uk
www.communitylandadvice.org.uk
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