Cornwall Council handed £1m to fund edible plants

Cornwall Council believe the training of Cormac's workers could be the first of its kind in the country

Edible plants have been sown in public spaces in Cornwall thanks to government funding, says Cornwall Council.

The local authority said it had been allocated £975,000 from the Shared Prosperity Fund and it believed it was the first English council to receive such funding.

Funding would last until March 2025 and workers from Cormac, the council's arms-length subcontracting company, were being trained to sow and care for the plants by specialists at Forest Garden, Falmouth, it added.

Dean Tresidder, from Cormac, said: "If it's done in the right way in a public space, it's free food."

He said people should expect to see more hedgerows they can forage from on council-owned land in the future.

He said: "You'll have salads from the leaves early in the year and you will have edible flowers in the summer.

"You'll have fruits later in the year, with apples and plums, and then later on you'll have nuts."

Specialist Simon Miles added: "This is probably the first in the country ever of any council sending their staff on [edible plant] training."