Cornwall Council decides there is ‘no good reason’ to sell off its 10,000-acre farms estate
A sustainable growth scrutiny committee heard that the financial performance of the estate, which includes around 80 farms, must improve though.
A Cornwall Council meeting has heard that there is “no good reason” to sell off its 10,000-acre farms estate.
However, a sustainable growth scrutiny committee on Tuesday 16 June heard that the financial performance of the estate, which includes around 80 farms, must improve.
The possible sale of a large part of the estate previously triggered widespread alarm among local farmers, campaigners and some Cornwall councillors when the council decided last summer to consider the future of its farm assets and farming service.
A task and finish group – which was set up to look into the economic successes and failures of the estate – feels that “the release of the entire or large parts of the estate would be unwise, but that it needed to work harder and better to meet the pressures and complexities of the council and the communities it serves”.
The group’s six-month inquiry considered wide-ranging opinions and views from external independent witnesses within the farming, agriculture and food sectors, as well as from internal officers and through research by the members of the group.
The inquiry group’s chairman, Cllr Rory Gow, said: “The financial performance of the estate must improve, although the size of the overall estate is to remain at approximately 10,000 acres as it is now.
“The estate has the potential to deliver more than it has towards wider corporate ambitions.” This would include looking at delivering affordable housing on around 100 acres of the land, roughly one per cent of the farms estate.
Jonny Alford, Cornwall Council’s property lead for the estate, told councillors: “The way I see the estate moving forward is moving away from the ‘farm’ being the opportunity to ‘the land’ being the opportunity.” This could include opportunities for food-based businesses to use “small parcels of land to make big things happen”.
Cllr Peter Channon, who sat on the task and finish group, said: “This was brought about to a degree because people were concerned, or there were rumours, that we were going to sell off our county farms.
“Well we certainly found out very quickly that there was no good reason to do that.” He added that the estate was “in quite good health considering the financial times that we’re in”.
A report to the committee outlined that the number of dairy farms that are part of the estate – between 20 and 30 dairy holdings – must reduce to a smaller number of well-equipped and maintained holdings.
“There is recognition that whilst dairy farming has been the foundation of the estate for many years, the council’s financial pressures will inevitably reduce its ability to invest in the physical infrastructure of all the existing dairy farms to meet and keep modern standards set by milk buyers,” states the report.
The meeting heard that upgrading many of the estate’s current dairy farms to meet milk buyer standards would cost millions of pounds.
Officers clarified that those dairy farms that will be lost will not be sold off, but repurposed for other forms of farming such as beef. There was a commitment that the land would be kept for agricultural use.
The committee endorsed the findings of the inquiry and recommended that the council’s Liberal Democrat / Independent cabinet adopts the reviewed and updated farms strategy business plan.