Executive Summary
# Central Zone Community Health Plan (2025–2029) The seven Community Health Boards of Nova Scotia Health's Central Zone — Chebucto West, Cobequid, Dartmouth, Eastern Shore Musquodoboit, Halifax, Southeastern, and West Hants Uniacke — published a five-year community health plan covering Halifax Regional Municipality and West Hants, a region representing roughly 47 per cent of the province's population.
## What the engagement found Between October 2023 and February 2024, the Boards ran 65 in-person sessions with more than 550 participants, alongside an online survey, Google form responses, and comment cards. Focused sessions were held with the Muslim, African Nova Scotian, Ukrainian, Acadian and Francophone communities and the Confederacy of Mainland Mi'kmaq, among others.
Community members were asked about five provincially identified priorities — income, housing, food insecurity, active communities, and social connection. Two more emerged from the engagement itself: transportation and communications. Across all seven, two themes dominated: **affordability** and **ability to access**.
## Why this matters to Food Web The plan's framing of food insecurity is broader than emergency food supply. It treats access as a systems problem — awareness of available resources, geographical distance, limited availability and choice, inadequate transportation, and poor cell and internet service are all named as barriers to local access.
Two commitments in the plan line up directly with Food Web's work. The Boards commit to collaborating on community assets, specifically multifunctional indoor and outdoor community infrastructure, so these can be better resourced, reasonably priced, and barrier free — a description that fits the licensed community kitchens, church halls, and legions already listed on Food Web Kitchens. The plan also recommends that Nova Scotia Health provide Boards with timely, localized health and community data, and that partners establish a unified source of local community information, which is the gap Food Maps is built to fill.
The plan explicitly names the JustFOOD Action Plan and the Eastern Shore Musquodoboit Well-Being Hub as initiatives worth sustaining, and recommends increased funding to the CHB Wellness Fund to support long-term local community programs.
*Published by Nova Scotia Health Community Health Boards, Central Zone. Reproduced here as a reference document informing Food Web's food security and asset mapping work.*