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Community farm struggling, caught in a council no man’s land

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Sutton Community Farm, just outside Wallington, is struggling for financial survival, saying that is running at a “significant loss”.

Run as a co-operative, the farm has attracted 450 community shareholders since it was established in 2010.

The farm receives most of its funding from the City Bridge Trust and the National Lottery, plus sales of its produce and veg boxes to the public across Sutton and Croydon.

It is run by seven full-time staff and other volunteers but is now appealing for more support from Sutton Council to help keep it going. The best the LibDem-run local authority has had to offer so far has been to “promote the farm in its publications”. Which is hardly going above and beyond… It turns out that the council has not even managed to keep that cheapskate promise.

“Our relationship with the council doesn’t lead to much benefit to us as a community enterprise,” said Sutton farmer Sonia Cropper (this week’s winner in our nominative determinism competition).

Boxing day: the veg box operation at the Sutton Community Farm. They need more customers

“They made some suggestions on how they could help, that they didn’t deliver on in the end,” Cropper said.

“They have digital billboards and they said they would put us on their billboards for free, but that never happened. We have had various meetings with their comms team… but it never really leads to anything.”

The farm is within the London Borough of Sutton, but the land is owned by Surrey County Council, leaving the farmers in a kind of local authority no man’s (or woman’s) land, uncared for by either council.

Sutton Council told the BBC that it is a “a great supporter” of Sutton Community Farm’s work. “We have been very happy to promote their amazing community work in our publications regularly over the past year,” they claimed.


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