In January we sent out a questionnaire to find out what members of the network thought the WEN local food project should work on in the next few years. We are using the responses we received to help us to inform local food project policy, direction, emphasis and future funding bids. Overall the greatest challenge people faced around local food was its availability and the biggest problem faced by projects was getting the funding to carry the project through. People identified several ways in which WEN could help them represent their project. These included doing more campaigning and promotion of each project, conducting training workshops and raising WEN’s profile.

Almost everyone felt that WEN should continue to be advocates for women community food growers in Tower Hamlets and most people thought that developing a volunteer training project would be very beneficial as it would give the opportunity for people to learn new skills and increase their employability. The area on which most people wanted WEN to concentrate was enabling communities to manage land sustainably for food growing. Respondents wanted future campaigning to focus on access to land for food growing and the availability of healthy food. We had some very positive comments about local food projects. Heidi Quinn from BTCV Scotland said that the best aspect was: “seeing people change for the positive with improved confidence, English skills and mental health.” Thanks to everyone who took part and congratulations to Nicky Scott from Devon who won the prize draw.