Downton Abbey actor Jim Carter OBE, has backed West London’s first-ever Right to Grow policy.
Hounslow Council’s new policy, called Go Forth and Grow for the Future, opens up unloved and unused public land for communities, schools and volunteer groups to grow food and garden.
The Emmy-nominated actor, who is patron of Greenfingers, a charity creating magical gardens for children’s hospices, alongside his wife Imelda Staunton, spoke to Cllr Salman Shaheen, Cabinet Member for Culture, Leisure and Public Spaces, at Hounslow Council. He called on other local councils to follow Hounslow’s example as one of the first councils in the country to open the doors for public growing to revitalise neglected spaces.
Go Forth and Grow for the Future builds on Hounslow Council’s successful and ongoing Grow for the Future policy. The UK’s first policy to turn wasteland into new allotments, community gardens and orchards to grow food in a cost-of-living crisis. The spaces are paired with local community groups and schools, helping to teach people about healthy living, sustainability and biodiversity.
The original Grow for the Future policy won backing from the government and the Greater London Authority, with over £200,000 from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF). It has transformed seven sites since 2024. But by launching Go Forth and Grow for the Future as a new sister policy, residents do not have to wait for the council to gain funding to transform new sites, if they want to get on and do it themselves.
In addition to cutting red tape and allowing community groups, schools and volunteers a Right to Grow, the Go Forth and Grow for the Future policy will provide interested groups with a toolkit to help them. People will also be signposted to information on potential funding opportunities should they need it, including through the council’s own Thriving Communities Fund as well as external sources of funding.
Four pilot schemes were already underway before the council formalised its Go Forth and Grow for the Future policy. These have seen community groups clear littler, trim overgrown vegetation and plant flowers in an Isleworth alleyway; transform an unused, overgrown, fly-tipped patch of grass by a railway bridge in Brentford; and plan a sensory garden on Ivybridge, one of the borough’s biggest council estates.
Jim Carter said “I would like to send sincere congratulations to Hounslow Council for their enlightened and exciting new initiative, Go Forth and Grow for the Future. To offer under-utilised council ground to schools and community groups to grow plants and food and to reconnect with nature is both imaginative and far-sighted. I only hope that more local councils follow suit. I can’t wait to see the results and wish all involved a fun and fertile future.”
Cllr Salman Shaheen, said “The pandemic taught everyone, all at once, the value of green space – for our physical and mental health, and for learning about nature, biodiversity and sustainability. Sadly, many people living in flats do not have gardens to call their own, while unused land goes to waste, attracting fly tipping and anti-social behaviour. So we’re cutting red tape for green shoots.
“With this policy, the whole borough can be a garden, allowing residents to take over unloved land to grow food and flowers and allowing people of all ages to learn about and care for the environment by getting their hands dirty.”
