Environment Secretary hears key concerns at CLA Game Fair

Private landowners provide over 20% of social housing in rural communities – but it could disappear over the next three years unless the Government takes a fresh look at its green agenda, according to CLA President Harry Cotterell as he addressed the Environment Secretary at the CLA Game Fair.

The problem hinges around the drive to improve the insulation qualities of let housing and the fact that many of the houses let by traditional landowners were country cottages with thick, solid, walls.

CLA President Harry Cotterell said: “The private sector delivers what the public sector cannot - CLA members provide 22 percent of social housing in rural areas but to bring those properties up to the required standard by 2018 would cost many tens of thousands of pounds for each house, effectively making them unviable as let housing.”

It was, said Mr Cotterell, one of the unintended consequences of the Government’s Green Deal and although the CLA accepted that it could not change the principals of the deal, it would like to see the methodology changed because it was currently flawed.

He said: “We told the Minister that unless we can persuade the Government to change a methodology that was skewed against rural properties there was a risk that they would disappear from the rented sector and be sold as second homes or simply left empty.”

Mr Cotterell also asked Mr Paterson for help in tackling another rural problem relating to compulsory purchase.

He added: “Farmers and landowners who find their land compulsorily taken for such things as road or rail schemes then find they are landed with a bill for capital gains tax for selling land they never wanted to part with in the first place.”

It would, he said, sweeten the pill if any money paid to a landowner under compulsory purchase schemes, could be exempt from capital taxation.

He said: “The Minister listened very carefully to our arguments and we will be writing to him to explain the detail. He spoke to us at length about his views on CAP reform and his conviction that the new regime had to be simple for farmers to understand and simple to deliver.

“We were immensely encouraged by all that the Minister had to say, particularly by his commitment to preventing plant and animal disease being imported into this country and by his understanding of the vital contribution a well-managed countryside makes to such things as the tourist industry.

“We were also pleased that the Minister – and the Labour Party’s Shadow Minister for Food and Farming, Huw Iranca-Davies - were able to spend a day with us at the CLA Game Fair which is, after all, the focal point for everything that goes on in our great British countryside.”

Environment Secretary Owen Paterson vowed at the Game Fair’s CLA President’s Debate to work with the CLA, NFU and Tenant Farmers Association to simplify payments made through the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

Paterson took part in the debate “Is the countryside marginalised in party politics?’ along with CLA president Harry Cotterell, Shadow Food and Farming minister Huw Irranca--Davies and Lib Dem MP Roger Williams.

Answering an audience question on CAP payments, Mr Paterson said he wanted to deliver greening simply, before working with the Association to assess payments.

CLA President Harry Cotterell said: “We are pleased that Owen Paterson chose the CLA Game Fair debate to address concerns over the CAP payments.

“We believe that it is wrong to start from the premise that the maximum amount of money must be transferred from the CAP’s agricultural support Pillar One to Rural Development Pillar Two.

“We look forward to working with the Government to assess exactly what is needed and make the process as simple as possible.”

Chaired by BBC Radio 4 Farming Today presenter Charlotte Smith, the panel also discussed issues affecting the countryside such as bovine TB, coastal access and rural proofing.