First Food Resilience Strategy for Shropshire
Press Release – October 24
The Bishop’s Castle Town Council has adopted an updated Community Food Resilience Strategy for the Town.
This ground-breaking strategy is the only Food Strategy in the County and demonstrates how the Council and Community are taking a proactive approach to local food security and capacity building to withstand future shocks.
At a recent council meeting, Mayor Josh Dickin, spoke about the challenges that we are confronting locally that stem from global food shocks, and acknowledged the struggles that people are having - unable to afford to shop at the local Coop or Spar, and the worry of escalating risks. This comes at a time when food resilience and stockpiling are climbing up the national agenda and ‘place-based’ engagement is being encouraged.
"This summer has seen weather that confirms the difficulties we will be facing in the future, not just in BC, nationwide but worldwide. Bishop's Castle Town Council have adopted the proposed Community Food Resilience Strategy for the period 2026 - 2030 presented by Dr Daphne Du Cros. We can look forward to the November forum when the Town, supported by the Council, will try to build on local strengths, upskilling people to use more open spaces to grow produce. This is in addition to already established local producers and developing further our allotments".
-Deputy Mayor Leon Kosciuczyk, Bishop’s Castle Town Council
The Strategy was informed by a public consultation to identify what food resilience would look like for the community, should a crisis hit and impact local food access or affordability. Areas of focus show how food links to many areas of our daily lives, and include the local food production and routes to market, community-building and upskilling, health and wellbeing, as well as land stewardship for healthy soils and water systems. The document highlights how even small local actions and existing projects can build stronger systems.
The strategy identifies further ways that the Council, local organisations, farms, businesses and community members can engage to better respond to crisis and support those who will be disproportionately impacted by shocks. This echoes back the local response during the pandemic and the Cost of Living crisis which launched the Bishop’s Castle Food Bank, offering a critical support system.
“The need for Food Resilience is quickly becoming a focus as we face the compounding and accelerating threats of wars, climate extremes, failed harvests and other crises that lead to supply chain disruption and increased costs. These global issues hit local people in very real ways, but being proactive is just sensible. Every community would benefit from a local food resilience and crisis response plan.”
-Dr. Daphne Du Cros, Strategy Author and Lead at Shropshire Good Food Partnership
A Community Food Forum will be held in November 27th, 7pm at the Bishop’s Castle Town Hall to take the strategy to the next step through project-based capacity building and the creation of an Action Plan for local crisis response.
The success of the Food Strategy has been shared with Stuart Anderson MP as an example of Civil Food Resilience action that would benefit all communities across the constituency. The Shropshire Good Food Partnership has asked all our local MPs to support a broader food security and resilience approach for Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin.
The Bishop’s Castle Community Food Strategy is a supporting branch of the Town Council's Climate Action Plan, developed by Light Foot Enterprises Climate Action Group. The Food Strategy is a part of the Food Forward BC initiative supported by Shropshire Good Food.
Thanks to the Bishop’s Council Town Council for showing leadership on local food security and offering a model to other communities and councils.
For more information, contact: Dr. Daphne Du Cros, Strategy Author and lead at Shropshire Good Food Partnership
View the Strategy at: https://lightfootenterprises.org/food-forward-bc/
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