Cupar Food Station

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Cupar is an historic market town, built on farming and food – and is blessed to be in an area surrounded by a wealth of award-winning producers and suppliers. Over the last couple of years, a collective has collaborated over an opportunity to bring the former Argos site on Ferguson Square back into meaningful commercial and community-benefit use. Cupar Development Trust has picked up the baton and is now working on plans for a feasbility study, exploring opportunities to create the ‘Cupar Food Station’ …

Trust Chair, Tony Miklinski, says: “There are a number of factors contributing to the nascent proposal – and these first came to light a couple of years ago when concerns were expressed over the provision of food to vulnerable members of our community combined with increasing energy costs.”

A ‘collective’ gathered before Christmas 2022 when many businesses, organisations and community groups were providing open and free ‘warm spaces’ – primarily offered to elderly residents. This led to the CuparNow funded Christmas card – delivered to all homes across the town highlighting such spaces.

The discussions and call for action were accentuated by:

  • The closure of The Lighthouse on Bonnygate that had provided support for a regular, vulnerable clientele.
  • The dilapidated state of the town’s Foodbank – combined with restricted space in the current property for storing/distributing fresh produce; similar issues apply for storage of frozen produce.
    • There was and remains an increasing demand on the services provided by Cupar Foodbank. Few know that it meets the needs of more than 30 referring agencies – and provides support for people across north-east Fife, from Newburgh to Crail. This has put the Foodbank under increased administrative pressure – recognised by the Trussel Trust (who run the local Foodbank) as well as by politicians at Westminster for the need to evolve emergency food provision.

Conversations with various food-related and support groups continued ongoing through 2023 and into 2024.

Prior to the July election, Wendy Chamberlain MP was Chair of the all-party committee looking into the related issues: they published a report (Cash or food? Exploring effective responses to destitution) which had five key recommendations:

  1. A long-term strategy for local crisis support underpinned by the principles for ensuring support is effective and dignified.
  2. Cash-first approaches as the default response to financial crisis, while ensuring a range of suitable options are available to people depending on their individual needs.
  3. Improve data sharing between all levels of government to help develop a holistic picture of local financial hardship.
  4. Funding to develop and coordinate strong local support systems which mean that nobody has to turn to a food bank as a first port of call.
  5. Ensuring local crisis support is accessible to all and no one is excluded.

Local is the answer …

The ‘local’ message is the key driver and in early discussions with Wendy Chamberlain, she has shown her interest and support for a Cupar-led initiative.

Other local issues add to the background story as well as offering potential opportunities:

  • Hospitality & Training: the former Elmwood facility in Cupar has reduced its training capacity to almost zero over recent years; the key aspect that relates to the project is the degradation of what was once one of the country’s leading hospitality training facility. The potential to create food-related training facilities to compensate for the recent demise of Elmwood based courses is an opportunity for the town as well as for youngsters living in the around Cupar – and for those of all ages looking to retrain in a vibrant and essential sector of north-east Fife’s economy.
  • Provenance / Food Surplus / Waste: Cupar and its rural catchment is famed for its provenance. CuparNow created Food & Drink Trails Fife (centred on Cupar) in partnership with Cupar Development Trust (CDT) highlighting 800+ businesses across NE Fife in the food/drink sector. 10% of businesses in Cupar are in the same sector, including Growers Garden, the offshoot of East of Scotland Growers (ESG) who have created the unique Broccoli and Cauliflower crisp company: one of their drivers was to make use of produce that might otherwise be wasted.
  • Growing awareness or food surplus and waste at a local/regional level – and a desire to address the issue
  • The stated interest of ESG to support the concept through:
    • Provision of excess product
    • Transportation networks
    • Engagement with their customer, Tesco, together with Tesco’s stated interest in becoming more engaged with local supply chains as well as being more invested in community health and wellbeing.

Health and wellbeing …

Related discussions have been shared around prescribed fresh fruit & vegetables – from a project run in London by the Alexandra Rose Charity. As a result of this, conversations have since been held with local GPs (in north-east Fife and Levenmouth) to explore potential engagement, support and health benefits, especially for those with poor, diet-related conditions, primarily:

  • High blood pressure
  • Pre-diabetic
  • Vascular issues

The GPs have spoken of the demands on their time and, if a ‘prescription service’ is to be created, for that to be an easy-to-use IT platform. This provides an opportunity for work with Dundee and St Andrews Universities and related tech businesses to create a bespoke platform to support all aspects.

‘Lifestyle Medicine’ is a recognised, recent initiative – gaining traction and support in Fife – that has the potential to prevent, rather than cure. The premise has six pillars:

  1. Healthy nutrition
  2. Restorative sleep
  3. Physical activity
  4. Good mental health
  5. Social connections/ good relationships
  6. Freedom from toxic substances (alcohol, drugs, cigarettes)

The ‘Cupar Food Station’ ambitions feed into this.

Repurposing property …

There is the potential availability of the former Argos site via some form of Community buy out: owners, Peak Holdings, have been kept informed of the ongoing community discussions throughout 2024 and are open and willing to consider options.

The property is circa. 15,000 sq ft (20,000 sq ft with internal car park) plus external parking areas on Waterend Road.

The property also owns Ferguson Square – including three tenanted properties on the same.

Commercialisation

All involved to date understand the key is commercialisation – to ensure any project is self-sustaining and not reliant on annual funding rounds. As stated, the site already has three paying tenants and further consideration for commercial activities include:

  • Anchor tenant: as the Trussel Trust / Food Bank
  • Food Market: the potential to create a modern, attractive, artisanal food market that would be commercially viable and deliver sufficient funds to maintain and develop the site
  • Street Market: the opportunity to work with the current Cupar Market provider to bring the ‘open market’ into Ferguson Square on a commercial footing
  • Delivery service: a provision of delivery/pickup to be utilised by all partners on the site:
    • Food Bank – drop off and collection points across NE Fife
    • GPs – delivering prescribed fresh fruit and veg to patients across NE Fife and Levenmouth
    • Market Traders – enabling those in the market to deliver produce to customers across NE Fife and Levenmouth
  • Square: the opportunities afforded to have Ferguson Square repurposed as an ‘event space’ for community hire that doesn’t require road closure.

Over and above these, there will be other commercial activities/operations that the proposed feasibility study will unearth.

Community …

The natural synergy that exists between all of the above – with ‘food provision’ at the heart of it all – opens opportunities for such a project to support other community-focused initiatives including:

  • Banking Hub – Nationwide is committed until 2026; beyond that, what will be the banking provision in Cupar?
  • School Uniform Re-Use – provision of a facility for second-hand school uniforms and equipment to be recycled/repurposed
  • Charity use – the Chair of Age Concern has already expressed an interest in opportunities to be involved in the project – opening discussions of ‘multi-generational’ use/support

Next steps …

The Trust has written a paper that provides the scope and level of detail sufficient to allow the development of a Feasibility Study (FS) into how the Cupar Food Station project might be successfully delivered. Funding is being sought.

 

Need more?

For further information, please visit the Cupar Development Trust website via this link.

 

Thank you for reading.