The Community Land Advisory Service has created a flowchart to guide users who want to find the right type of lease for their project or interest in Scotland.
Simply download the document, choose which category best suits your group or situation and then answer the questions to find out which lease best suits.
Start here for an overview and introduction to the topic of Leases. Please remember that leases and the legal processes surrounding them vary from country to country in the UK. Therefore we advise seeking legal help where possible. Meanwhile, to read the overview, simply click the document link below:
Wild Elements is a social enterprise based in North Wales, dedicated to getting people outdoors and closer to nature in a fun way, through forest schools and outdoor play schemes and community projects and events. It was set up by Thomas Cockbill and Resi Tomat in March 2013. They had previously been working for the National Trust at Penrhyn Castle, near Bangor, Gwynedd, carrying out education activities. When that project finished, they could see a need for nature-based play services in the local area.
Borth Community Gardens is an initiative to create a space for local people to grow their own food in a communal environment. The allotments and community gardens are located near St. Matthew's Church, Borth, Ceredigion. Activities on the site include gardening, work parties by locals and visiting groups, as well as Open Day events and more informal get-togethers. In addition to cultivated land, the gardens are now home to several chickens, a couple of ducks and bee hives on the community garden section.
Successful groups who have done a good job with a project frequently find that they are offered additional sites to work their magic on. We often find that these groups feel obliged to say yes to the extra land but with hindsight they wished they had said no!
The aim of this guidance is to support you through this decision process, giving you points to consider so you can decide whether your group should say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to taking on extra land.
This guidance is aimed at Registered Social Landlords such as housing associations which may want to get involved in community gardening or design community gardens or allotments into their plans. It is intended as a primer to help RSLs understand the needs and benefits of community growing and draws on examples of current housing-led community growing projects and explains how each has been developed.
This organic food-growing community garden, based on the site of an abandoned plot in Llangollen, is owned by Denbighshire County Council which gave permission for the development of community growing in 2012. It’s an excellent example of the process of setting up a community garden on a council site, with a licence rather than a lease.
Catherine Veasey, who has been involved in the development of the garden through the local Friends Of The Earth group, describes more about the garden and how it worked with the council.
Cae Tân, a community supported agriculture CSA project, is located on a beautiful rural site in Ilston on the Gower peninsula, Wales. The location is next to a couple of Sites of Special Scientific Interest and within the Gower Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The project is in the early stages, but their experiences around planning and leasing will be useful to others setting up CSAs.
