Starting a community orchard

[flynch]

I have been starting an allotment and landscaping the garden, got rather carried away with buying/grafting fruit trees and now have far too many. Round the corner from me is an unused field belonging to the council and I was thinking it'd make a great community orchard. I know I'd need council permission but I was wondering if anyone has any experience on how best to go about it. How likely is the council to agree to this?

[mothhawk]

Depends whether they intend selling the field in the future, or building on it, or if they rent it out. It's unlikely in these austere days that your council would allow a piece of land to sit around not earning any money.
The best way is to go to the council offices and ask about the field.

[Bill Door]

Interesting. Let us know how you get on. The reason i say this is because we are on a new development and the plans include an orchard area. So I would like to know how your "unplanned" orchard develops.

At present the houses have not yet been completed, about 100 to go!! So there is plenty of time to "interfere" and I do know of two or three other "guerillas" on the same site.

Best wishes

Bill

[veggiechicken]

Do you have a local development plan that shows whether there are any plans for the field?
Are there any local groups who are interested in growing edibles? I don't know where you live to give you any pointers.