Big J on radio 4..

[Conor Wright]

14 minutes ago, difflock said:

I wonder would "they" produce such helpful figures in respect of the top benefits claiming families, or would that be accused of impinging on their "human rights", so why are farming families fair game then?

Wondering what the queen earns?! 

The royal farms get approx £18m annually in subsidies, plus she gets a nice big castle.. or two.. or three.. then theres all the less readily available data.. suffice to say it's excessive wealth to say the least. Not bad money for waving and occasionally shaking hands with people she dislikes.

People who have lost their jobs on the other hand...

By the way I'm not condoning dossers or those who play the system at the lower end of the scale, or those who claim benefits when working on the side but there is a place for support for tax paying individuals who slip between the cracks through no fault of their own.

[Chalgravesteve]

1 minute ago, Big J said:

I don't begrudge any individual for selling their house for as much as they can get for it. It's only human nature and I'd do the same thing. 

 

My point is that the land it sits on is second rate pasture, and 3 acres would post £20k. I could commission a house build, using a kit from a Polish company for about £1400 a square metre, including all service connections. So a 200 square metre house would be around £280k. The construction quality of such a house far exceeds almost anything on the market, with triple glazing, MVHR, EPC standard B.

 

Agricultural sheds and on site circulation (roads/drives/tracks) might set me back another £40k.

 

So for £340k, I'd have the same amount of space as the £650k house, but with a much better quality house. This is my point about the state of planning in this country at this point. Where is that gap of £310k? There is no tangible value in the extra £310k that you're paying, it's just deemed to be the price of paying market rate. There is no shortage of land here in Devon, but there is no desire to broaden planning laws to allow smallholders to build affordably.

The land might be second rate pasture, but the moment your get a planning consent on it to build a house with outbuildings, its not second rate pasture any more and its significantly more valuable.

 

Again, I'm not trying to be clever and the planning laws at times are mad. However, without a planning restriction that prevents houses just being built on second rate pasture, that lovely view across the valley wouldn't be a lovely view anymore!  So whilst I understand your sentiments, there has to be an acceptance that land you can build on is substantially more valuable. 

 

If you can get a planning consent for a detached house, permitted development right immediately allow you to put a 4m single storey extension onto it, or 8m if there are no neighbour objections! So when they grant a planning consent for a house size A it can almost instantaneously become substantially bigger through permitted development.  

[difflock]

"J" So you would be happy with a relaxation in the planning Regs, and equally happy for the current set of landowners to profit from selling off more easily approved sites thereby?

[Big J]

2 minutes ago, Chalgravesteve said:

The land might be second rate pasture, but the moment your get a planning consent on it to build a house with outbuildings, its not second rate pasture any more and its significantly more valuable.

 

Again, I'm not trying to be clever and the planning laws at times are mad. However, without a planning restriction that prevents houses just being built on second rate pasture, that lovely view across the valley wouldn't be a lovely view anymore!  So whilst I understand your sentiments, there has to be an acceptance that land you can build on is substantially more valuable. 

 

If you can get a planning consent for a detached house, permitted development right immediately allow you to put a 4m single storey extension onto it, or 8m if there are no neighbour objections! So when they grant a planning consent for a house size A it can almost instantaneously become substantially bigger through permitted development.  

Understood and agreed. And I wouldn't have an objection to paying £75k for such a piece of land if planning was approved for an AOC development. I do know of such a plot about 20 miles from here at that price and also 3 acres. They are extremely rare though.

 

It would be useful though if councils could understand that agricultural and forestry contractors need a fair bit of space to accommodate machines. I have two forwarders, two tractors, a bed processor, two vans, a trailer and other bits and bobs. I need space to store and work on the machines and I'd argue that my objective need for land is greater than that of a weekend farmer with a dozen cows or a horsey type that wants some grazing for their ponies. 

 

There are loads of people I know down here in similar positions. Subcontractors, sawmills, other forestry types. Some simply build without permission on the basis that it's easier to ask forgiveness....

[Big J]

5 minutes ago, difflock said:

"J" So you would be happy with a relaxation in the planning Regs, and equally happy for the current set of landowners to profit from selling off more easily approved sites thereby?

There would have to be a transfer of assets, so yes, perhaps they would benefit, but it would result in an overall drop in the value of land. Perhaps a price cap per hectare (at say double the market rate of typical arable land) could be enforced to control prices, and the purchaser would need to demonstrate that they were going to build their own home and live in it for a set period in order to discourage speculative portfolio building from people buying up all available land.

[Chalgravesteve]

7 minutes ago, Big J said:

There would have to be a transfer of assets, so yes, perhaps they would benefit, but it would result in an overall drop in the value of land. Perhaps a price cap per hectare (at say double the market rate of typical arable land) could be enforced to control prices, and the purchaser would need to demonstrate that they were going to build their own home and live in it for a set period in order to discourage speculative portfolio building from people buying up all available land.

The problem here though, is that small parcels of land for relatively low value is no good for the seller. If they sold 3 acres for say £50k/acre (but that land has negligible original price value - say £1k acre from decades ago) then the capital gain is almost all of the value. So they sell for £150,000 then they might pay as much as 28% CGT on the sale. So they are only potentially getting £108K for the land. Unless they absolutely need to sell it they don't. 

 

So its never just a straightforward set of values. There's more to it than that. I think it was Oscar Wilde who said you should buy land, because they don't make it any more...... 

 

[difflock]

24 minutes ago, Big J said:

There would have to be a transfer of assets, so yes, perhaps they would benefit, but it would result in an overall drop in the value of land. Perhaps a price cap per hectare (at say double the market rate of typical arable land) could be enforced to control prices, and the purchaser would need to demonstrate that they were going to build their own home and live in it for a set period in order to discourage speculative portfolio building from people buying up all available land.

Ah!

So you would not be happy with "just" the relaxation of the planning Regs,

you rather wish to "seize"(i.e. obtain at less than the market rate) the possessions of others so as to benefit yourself then "J".

Got it!

Edit

Since no sane individual landowner would sell on your pipe-dream pricing terms.

And , even better luck with enforcing "set periods" of ownership to prevent speculative development.

Edited August 29, 2019 by difflock

[LeeGray]

36 minutes ago, Big J said:

Understood and agreed. And I wouldn't have an objection to paying £75k for such a piece of land if planning was approved for an AOC development. I do know of such a plot about 20 miles from here at that price and also 3 acres. They are extremely rare though.

 

It would be useful though if councils could understand that agricultural and forestry contractors need a fair bit of space to accommodate machines. I have two forwarders, two tractors, a bed processor, two vans, a trailer and other bits and bobs. I need space to store and work on the machines and I'd argue that my objective need for land is greater than that of a weekend farmer with a dozen cows or a horsey type that wants some grazing for their ponies. 

 

There are loads of people I know down here in similar positions. Subcontractors, sawmills, other forestry types. Some simply build without permission on the basis that it's easier to ask forgiveness....

I’ve got a dozen cows and I’d argue there need for pasture is greater than yours. Storage for your machines could be met at an industrial site. Cows couldn’t eat the concrete.

 

Some of the arguments here are bizarre.

[Big J]

8 minutes ago, difflock said:

Ah!

So you would not be happy with "just" the relaxation of the planning Regs,

you rather wish to "seize"(i.e. obtain at less than the market rate) the possessions of others so as to benefit yourself then "J".

Got it!

Edit

Since no sane individual landowner would sell on your pipe-dream pricing terms.

And , even better luck with enforcing "set periods" of ownership to prevent speculative development.

 

Hypothetical scenario: 

 

I buy 10 acres of relatively unproductive farmland at twice the market rate. That'd cost me £120-150k around here. Even after CGT, the landowner has still received almost 50% more than the market rate, and the chances are that the farmland wasn't earning them a penny. And probably grant funded.

 

I take the farmland, build a house, build a few agricultural sheds to support my business and plant the remaining 10 acres with a fast growing biomass species like poplar. The 2 acres of house/sheds supports my forestry business (which is presently paying out £4-5k a week in wages to cutters/harvester operator, thus supporting the local and broader economy) which is exclusively based on work within an hour radius of the house, and the 8 acres of hybrid poplar (when meticulously managed and thinned can attain 50t/hectare/year) gives a roadside value of annually of £7500 (before harvesting costs) as well as all the associated carbon capture benefits.

 

So, the original landowner makes more than they would have if it had been sold simply as farmland, the land becomes productive again, and 4/5 of it is forested and under management, with the whole site providing a multifaceted economic output that is beneficial not just to myself, but to others in the locality.

 

I'm just one small fish, it should be added. There will be thousands of people in Devon in similar situations to me, and I don't think it's a bad thing if there are more non-agricultural small holdings like the idea I'm proposing.

[Big J]

4 minutes ago, LeeGray said:

I’ve got a dozen cows and I’d argue there need for pasture is greater than yours. Storage for your machines could be met at an industrial site. Cows couldn’t eat the concrete.

 

Some of the arguments here are bizarre.

Yes, but there is no economic argument for having a dozen cows. They're pets, a luxury, something that you choose to do for your own personal reasons. Given that farming on a commercial scale is barely profitable, hobby farming certainly isn't, and given that preferential planning conditions are a form of economic support, I don't believe that preferential planning should be given for people in your situation. You're not running a business of the back of these dozen cows. 

 

Given that rural communities only prosper when they are economically self sustaining and successful, I would like to see planning law change to make it easier for businesses like mine to permanently establish themselves on land in the same way that a traditional farm does.