A proposal by Belfast’s Deputy Lord Mayor will go to the City Hall Planning Committee
Two Belfast independent councillors are calling for City Hall to adopt a plan making it a requirement for developers to include community food growing procedures in certain planning applications for housing in the city.
Former SDLP elected representatives, the current Deputy Lord Mayor Councillor Paul Doherty, and Councillor Paul McCusker have forwarded a motion which will be heard by the Planning Committee next month.
The motion, titled “Embedding Community Food Growing in the Planning Process for New Housing Developments” states the council “recognises Belfast’s status as a Right to Food City and affirms that the planning system has an important role to play in building healthier, more sustainable and more food-resilient communities.”
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The motion says that housing developments should not only provide homes, “but should also contribute to the long-term health, wellbeing, sustainability and resilience of the communities in which they are built.”
A Right to Food city is one that has formally committed to treating access to adequate and nutritious food as a legally protected human right, and believes that citizens should not be dependent on emergency charity.
Such cities in theory should be pushing for governments to be held legally accountable for ensuring citizens do not go hungry. Belfast officially became a Right to Food city in October 2023, following a successful motion at Belfast City Council by Councillor Doherty.
The Doherty motion adds: “The council notes that Belfast’s existing policy framework already recognises the importance of open space, residential amenity, placemaking, biodiversity, climate resilience, health and wellbeing, and council strategies also acknowledge the value of allotments, community gardens and local food growing.”
The proposal tasks council officers with making a report examining how Belfast Council, through its planning processes, could introduce a planning requirement to ensure appropriate space for community food growing in new social and private housing developments.
This would include allotments, community gardens, orchards, raised beds, edible landscaping and other forms of productive green space. The motion states: “This would represent a practical and innovative next step in giving meaning to Belfast’s status as a Right to Food City, placing food resilience, health and community wellbeing at the heart of how our city is planned and developed.”
The Deputy Lord Mayor left the SDLP following a major disagreement over a council vote on a Bobby Sands statue in April this year. Councillor Doherty said it was on a “matter of principle” after SDLP councillors left the chamber before a vote took place on a DUP motion to reopen an investigation into the erection of the statue in West Belfast.
Paul McCusker announced he left the SDLP in March 2023, citing frustration with political progress, particularly regarding his core issues of homelessness, addiction, and poverty. Not long after leaving the party, he successfully retained his council seat as an independent candidate in May 2023.
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