Plans for the County Farms

Suffolk County Council owns some 12,000 acres of farmland, including of course much of the former Chilton airfield just down the road.  In my capacity as Cabinet Member for Resource Management, oversight of the estate comes within my portfolio.

Much of the County Farm land was acquired after the First World War in order to provide holdings for returning soldiers. Parts were also transferred to the council after World War Two as military airfields were handed back.  Today some people believe that it should not be the role of a council to own farms, and I am regularly urged to sell them off.  It would not be sensible to do this immediately all in one go, because almost all of the farms are tenanted, sometimes on a long term basis.  To maximise value a long term strategy of consolidation and divestment would need to be put in place.  In the future this may be the most appropriate course of action.

At present there are no plans to divest the farms and indeed the council is in need of revenue rather than capital receipts.  It is therefore a more appropriate strategy to try to increase the average yield that we receive from the land holdings and see whether we can put the land to better, more profitable, use by finding development opportunities or adopting more innovative, or socially useful, approaches to the use of the land.

In this connection last week I attended a meeting to discuss the current state of the Grow your Future initiative, which has been developed in co-operation with the Country Landowners Association and Otley College.  This scheme, which is led by Councillor James Finch, is aimed at encouraging young entrepreneurs into farming and country based enterprises.  The idea is to release a small amount of the estate for rent to those who can come up with a credible business plan.  We hope to be able to help those who are keen to develop their ideas and take the first steps towards building a rural based enterprise.  The first applicants are currently working up their schemes with the help of business experts.  A panel hopes to have reached a decision on the granting of tenancies by the end of April. 

It is hoped that the level of rental that the county council will be able to achieve from these properties will be higher than that seen if we simply rented them out for traditional farming purposes.  Evaluation of the outcomes down the line will enable us to see if this actually happens, but in the meantime we hope to be able to support some fledgling enterprises along the way.

There are other plans in the air to try to help young people into more traditional farming.  The idea of share farming was introduced at the meeting.  This is a scheme whereby a landowner goes into partnership with an aspiring young farmer, helping him to get is foot on the farming ladder at a time when land purchase is beyond the means of many.  We need to go away and do some more work on this idea.  Since it would be higher risk than simply renting out the land, we would need to be sure of a higher level of return from our share of the profits of the joint enterprise.

The County Farms remain an interesting opportunity for the council in many ways.  It would be good to be able to run them more proactively, obtain a better return in the future for Suffolk taxpayers, fulfil a number of the council's social priorties, while at the same time supporting our tenants, traditional and less traditional.

Suffolk County Council County Farms across the county.