Written evidence submitted by The Orchard Project (UGS0070)
I am writing in my capacity as CEO of The Orchard Project.
The Orchard Charity is the national charity for urban orchards. Our vision is for everyone, in cities across the UK, to be within easy reach of a thriving community orchard. Urban community orchards tend to be modest in size, usually with 10-20 fruit or nut trees (plus other plants, wildflowers, and features). They are mainly located in small pockets of greenspace, or within housing estates, schools, and parks. Urban orchards bring huge benefits to cities; increasing biodiversity, addressing food security, improving community cohesion and individual well-being. Our charity works in cities across the UK - specifically within areas of high deprivation with limited access to nature. Since our inception in 2009, we have helped to plant and restore over 700 community orchards with more than 10,000 fruit trees. Our work has directly benefited around 70,000 participants, improving environmental spaces and improving the lives of people in urban areas.
With over a decade in experience in successfully making cities greener and more biodiverse, we offer our insights to the committee from our perspective of championing urban orchards.
Whilst we are seeing some progress from both Government and Local Authorities in this area, there is a massive funding shortage, particularly at Local Authority level, to provide quality services for parks and open spaces. This is being degraded year on year. We also note that the commissioning agenda has negatively influenced the quality of green space management in cities.
Lack of proper investment is impacting on the ability of local authorities to champion and support all types of green space improvement, including community orchards.
2. What environmental challenges are urban areas facing, and how could wider access and inclusion to green spaces (including dog-friendly spaces) address these challenges? Areas to consider but not limited to:
We consider all of the above to be pressing environment challenges and add that impacts of climate change are already being seen in our urban orchards, both in terms of increased pests and diseases and unreliable harvests. Moreover, people living in more deprived areas, where the quality of green spaces is often worse, will be facing even more challenges related to all of the above. Community orchards address the majority of these challenges and we would like to see more focus on establishing them in green spaces in urban areas both in policy and funding.
3. To what extent will Government initiatives such as the Green Infrastructure Framework, the levelling up parks fund and urban tree challenge fund adequately address the issues associated with a lack of green space in towns and cities?
In terms of establishing more community orchards in green spaces, we are not finding opportunities from any of these initiatives to support the establishment of successful community orchards. This is because either funds are aimed at larger street trees, or more numerous whip planting schemes. Fruit trees fall between these and need specific skills both in ground maintenance teams and the local community to look after them sufficiently (and in doing so provide local skills, increased involvement and increased confidence and self-esteem)
Specific feedback on the new Defra Coronation Fund, which although does explicitly fund community orchard establishment, only funds capital costs and not revenue or longer term maintenance. For community orchards to be sustainable, especially those using the local community to help steward the sites, the lack of funding for ongoing care and local knowledge results in high levels of tree failure. The Forestry Commission’s data on tree survival rates in urban areas can be as low as 50%. Our model of community co-design, training and support results in an over 95% tree survival rate.
There is a need for all funding schemes that encourage tree planting to have adequate budgets attached for tree after care and initial community buy-in.
In terms of The Green Infrastructure framework, despite community orchards being mentioned as a vehicle to achieve its objectives, we are not seeing a flow down of interest or knowledge in local authorities to encourage these in their plans.
4. Will the Government achieve its aims to increase the amount of green cover to 40% in urban residential areas? What other additional measures should the Government take to increase green urban space?
5. Is access to urban green spaces equally distributed across all sectors of society? Do the environmental and associated health risks disproportionately impact certain groups? What barriers to access exist and how can they be addressed?
Access is definitely not equally distributed across society, with people living in areas of high deprivation (who would benefit the most from quality green local spaces), having the least access to these.
We are particularly interested in how to involve more people from BPOC groups in our work and are developing projects to engage more people from these communities in orchards. The main barriers from our research in these communities are around financial and time poverty and the lack of opportunity to be able to volunteer as a result. We design services to help people gain employment in the green sector to address this, for example free training courses and train the trainer provision, which has a 30% led on to paid work in the sector.
Kath Rosen
CEO
The Orchard Project
October 2023