Gloucestershire rural estate review needs rethink
The Tenant Farmers Association has told Gloucestershire County Council that its rural estate review lacks the necessary detail required for Councillors to make appropriate decisions about potential disposal of farmland rented to tenant farmers in the County.
TFA Chief Executive George Dunn said "Gloucestershire County Council has consistently been held up as an example of good practice in the field of county farms management. However, the analysis contained within the current review documentation issued by County Council before Christmas is not a patch on the work that has been carried out before".
The County Council believes it needs to raise £125 million from its rural estate including £25 million over the next four years and has identified potential disposals which will reduce the size of its estate by a third and the number of tenancies from over 80 to around 50.
"We understand that the County Council has financial commitments to maintain services across the County however, to date the County Council has been able to combine the dual functions of providing opportunities to individuals to be farmers in their own account and yielding significant capital receipts from the rural estate for the benefit of other areas of the County Council’s work. Over the past thirty years the County Council has been able to raise something in the region of £100 million of value from carefully planned, strategic disposals of small parcels of land from its estate for development opportunity. The decision to move away from this strategy towards one which would see disposal of land outside of this framework is regrettable," said Mr Dunn.
"The documentation produced for the review lacks the necessary depth and analysis required for proper decision-making. It contains little or no valuation information. In order to make decisions about potential disposals of assets today it is important, at the very least, to have a view as to the potential value of the land earmarked for disposal both today and in the future through use of proper valuation techniques which are absent in the analysis presented to County Councillors," said Mr Dunn.
"It seems that the conclusion of the review is that the County Council should strive to achieve its £25 million target over four years at any cost. This is no basis for ensuring that council taxpayers receive best value for the farms being sold. Legally, County Councillors will not be able to make a decision in support of the review’s conclusions which stands the test of the obligations upon them as set out in various pieces of local government statute and if they were to do so they would leave themselves open to legal challenge," said Mr Dunn .
"The TFA is not opposed to Gloucestershire taking value from its estate so long as it is done in a sustainable, strategic and above all legally sound way. We do not believe that the current review provides any reasonable basis to decide that a significant disposal of farm land meets these criteria. We would therefore urge the County Council to hold off from making any decision on this review until it is in a position to produce and consult upon a much higher calibre of analysis than has been presented to date," said Mr Dunn.
