Weekly rural property and business update - 17th August

Commodity markets

Arable prices weakened further on the week under the weight of a slightly stronger pound, increasingly positive harvest forecasts in Russia and general buyer uncertainty. The heatwave helped push down lamb prices with AHDB reporting a drop in “finish”. But a shortage of supply and an increase in food service demand is supporting beef prices. 

Planning reform – Has the countryside been overlooked?

Rural businesses and landowners have long blamed planning issues for holding them back, so the government’s recent launch of a planning White Paper and consultation (closing on 31 October) that promises root and branch reform should be cause for celebration.

However, while welcoming the wider reforms, which include scrapping the Community Infrastructure Levy and Section 106 agreements, the lack of references to the countryside and agriculture have been branded a missed opportunity by some lobbyists. 

Jonathan Roberts, the CLA’s Director of External Affairs, said: “We have many farmers desperate to convert disused buildings into modern office space – but they are being restricted from doing so by a planning system that appears designed to hold the economy back.

Under the proposals land would be allocated one of three designations: Growth, Renewal or Protect. The fear is that most land in rural areas would fall under the Protect category, stymieing its development potential.

Despite this, Roland Brass of Knight Frank’s Planning team believes there will still be opportunities for rural landowners. 
“Overall, we support the objectives set out in the Planning for the Future White Paper, however this is only the first stage in end-to-end planning reform and what is implemented in the next two years or so might not necessarily exactly resemble last week’s proposals.

“The proposals seek to simply, speed up and provide more certainty as Local Plans will effectively allocate all land for ‘growth’, ‘renewal’ or ‘protection’ while providing specific area-based and design policies, as development management policies will become centralised. 

“More information on how such land zoning will be decided is expected to follow, but we would expect, although the government seeks to continue to protect the countryside, that local councils would retain an element of discretion to meet nationally derived housing targets, especially as growth areas are referred to comprising a range of opportunities including urban extensions and new settlements that would generally be located on greenfield sites. 

“Focusing future development on previously developed land is supported by government throughout the document and therefore any brownfield sites, urban or rural, would still be expected to be able to be the focus for development.”

Estates should carefully examine whether any of their existing commercial developments might count as brownfield sites, says Roland.

In addition to its planning White Paper, the government has also launched a consultation on improvements to the current planning system (closing 1 October) that Roland points out could be of more immediate relevance to landowners in the short term.

“One proposal is to increase the threshold for sites to provide affordable housing to 40 or 50 dwellings. This proposed change is intended to support SMEs and will likely be significant, especially in respect of scheme viability, as previous affordable housing thresholds started at ten or more units.”

Our Planning team has put together a briefing paper outlining the scope of both consultations. To receive your copy or for help contributing to either of the consultations and any other planning matters please get in touch with Roland.

Trade issues part 1 – Cheese induced nightmare for Japanese talks

It’s well known that too much cheese before bedtime can lead to odd dreams, but nobody was expecting the trade talks with Japan– pegged to be the first post-Brexit negotiating win with a major nation – to founder over one of the UK’s more pungent exports.

However, Trade Minister Liz Truss reportedly backed out of signing a deal with the country’s Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi who was in the UK last week because Japan refused to offer better terms for Stilton imports than provided under its current deal with the EU.

The impasse highlights the complexities, idiosyncrasies and highly political nature of trade talks. Stilton accounts for just 0.007% of the UK’s circa £15 billion of annual trade with Japan.

Trade issues part 2 – Sugar beet producers protest over cane import boost

Sugar beet farmers and British Sugar have, meanwhile, reacted angrily to a decision by the government to increase the volume of raw sugar cane that can be imported into the UK tariff free by 260,000 tonnes. It says the move will help producers in developing countries.

Beet producers here, as reported in Farmers Weekly, are also upset that they remain unable to use controversial neonicotinoid seed treatments, while other European countries such as France, Spain and Poland have offered their farmers a derogation. 

Neonicotinoids are thought to harm bees and are generally banned by the EU, but producers argue that as sugar beet doesn’t flower it is not an issue. Without the treatments aphid-borne viral diseases can hit yields by as much as 50%.

Forestry and woodland – Welsh government launches new tree-planting grant

Over £1.5m has been allocated to tree planting incentives as part of Wales’ Forest Recovery Fund. Up to £180,000 can be claimed and the scheme is open for applications until 18 October.

Edward Holloway of our Forestry Investment team comments: “While the key aim of this scheme is to provide a boost to tree nurseries, there are opportunities for farmers and landowners to benefit from capital investment towards existing woodland and new planting proposals. This underlines the Welsh Government’s commitment to the forestry sector and its National Forest Program.”

For more information on this or other forestry matters please get in touch with Edward.

And don’t forget to check out our forestry investment podcast which takes a wide-ranging look at the sector from a timber, climate change and environmental perspective with guests forester Andrew Bronwin and ecologist David Hetherington.