[Burredbrain]

Hi everyone,

First post on here so please let me know if I'm in the wrong part of the forum. Myself and a friend are serious about living a more sustainable lifestyle and as we have worked together for a number of years in conservation we have decided to team up to achieve this. Our initial idea is to buy a piece of land and gradually transform it over time into something that we can hopefully live on and eat from in the future. We want to do this in/around Leeds and have been looking for suitable places with our total funds currently at around £50,000. We have found the perfect spot of land just north of Leeds on the Otley Road that is currently green belt but would be considered for development - we'd rather see this turned into something like our nature sensitive smallholding idea than a concrete property jungle.

The land is 33 acres and is on the market for offers exceeding £300,000 which is obviously way above our budget. Therefore, we were wondering if any like-minded people are looking for pieces of land like this and would like to join with us to buy it cooperatively? Obviously the amount of land given to each person would be proportional to the money invested - e.g. our £50,000 would allot us 5-6 acres.

Anyone else with suggestions and useful information is also welcome to comment, also if anyone knows any other websites/forums I can post this on that would be brilliant.

The link to the land can be found here: http://www.propertypilot.co.uk/pdf/129+2826.pdf

Thanks,

Michael

[smiley bucket]

Hi Michael, i like your idea and thinking, the country needs more people like you. (As does the government!).  I think that at under ten thousand an acre you will have very stiff competition for this land.  Not only from horsey folks with money to burn or farmers looking to expand, but to rich sods with money to invest in land who will rent it to another tenant farmer then cash it in for housing twenty years down the line.  Much as I hate to mention their name, even Tesco could be interested, I've heard they are going to start building houses soon, damn them!  Good luck with your idea and finding somewhere soon, and I hope you're posting this on lots of sites to spread the idea :@)

[clydesdaleclopper]

Have you tried the UK permaculture forums?

[Bramblecot]

Contact the folk at Tablehurst Farm, Forest Row, East Sussex for advice on setting up a co-op farm.  Good luck with your venture, and welcome to this forum.

[Roxy]

Good luck with your venture.  I am alarmed at how much farm land is being built on round us.  There are a group of local residents fighting a big house builders who are in the process of buying green land off a farmer.  This means people whose houses backed on to fields, will  (and I think the builder will win) end up looking at a new estate.
 
What is happening here is land is going to tender - we bought 10 acres this way.  I feel we had to bid above what we would normally pay, to ensure our bid was the highest.  £22,500 for a two acre paddock just up the road - no planning and unlikely to get it!!

[MikeM]

this website often has adverts for people doing something just like you are doing:
 
http://www.diggersanddreamers.org.uk/
 
good luck with your venture, I hope you have every success.