A grant of more than £1.6 million from the Mayor’s London Regeneration Fund and a further £1.6 million in match funding from Lambeth council has secured the long-term future of Loughborough Farm which has been developed informally by volunteers since 2013.
Anthea Masey, chair of the Loughborough Junction Action Group (LJAC) said: “We are thrilled. Loughborough Farm is no longer a temporary thing and we have managed to establish its value to the community. The unique selling point of the bid was that it managed to mix industry with food growing.
“It will continue to develop and share farming skills and bring health and well-being benefits to local residents and employees alike.”
Lambeth council is providing the land at a peppercorn rent for 20 years and expects the project to create 1,000 square metres of employment space.
The money includes funding to create a new building from containers on a borough-owned site. It will include studio space, makerspace, co-working offices and shared workshops/food production, and horticultural research.
The project will also run an ‘arch recycling’ competition, to design and build self-contained structures which offer security, insulation and are waterproof to be inserted into arches.
