[Roxy]

Noticed this in Smallholder magazine, and seems you can legally live on the land.  Do not  a size of the plots, but may suit someone who desperately wants some land?
http://www.warrensmallholders.co.uk/index.html
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

[robert waddell]

not the way you think Roxy      they have been doing this in Scotland for years infact rosemary was punting for a friend on this forum 
 
£50000 does not seam a great deal of money and depends what you get for that and the area of land but a good earner for the landowner      it would be interesting to see it in the flesh and find out more about it
 
for this to work it must have the councils blessing

[hughesy]

Dunno how big the plots of land are but it looks like glorified allotments to me. Nice earner for the seller that'd for sure.

[doganjo]

Whole lot is for sale, guess it's going to make the present owner a good bit of cash.

[Rosemary]

Don't dis it just because the current owner is going to make money on it   

I got a call from a bloke thinking about doing a similar thing in NE Scotland - buying a big farm and making it into smallholdings of various sizes. Sounds like a noble idea - in fact, it is my Lottery project 
Not sure how you would exclude the horsiculturalists though.

[doganjo]

Could you exclude them by putting in a condition in their deeds that horses may not be kept on the smallholding?   Sounds a great lottery project, Rosemary!

[hughesy]

In fact it could work out nicely for the occupants. They'd be living in acommunity of like minded people who could all help each other out. Doubt if the planning police would allow residential permission though.

[YorkshireLass]

I queried this on a different forum...the consensus was the wording was far too vague so could be problems with planning permission (living on the land); how does access work; is it double fenced (imagine the standstills!); and the price per acre was silly money (plot 1 was 1.18 acres though I've misplaced the figures now)


http://forum.downsizer.net/viewtopic.php?t=72538&highlight=


I still quite like the idea of "giant allotments" though, if done properly!

[SteveHants]

Having lived more-or-less in that area of the world (Nr Stow) In my previous Job, I'm surprised you can get what ammounts to a shed on a a lawn for your 50k. I thought even a postage tamp sized piece of bog was making 100K.....


So, I suppose its good value, depending on how you look at these things.


I'd still rather rent..the opportunity for expansion looks limited and I bet those sheds get bloody cold in the winter...

[Roxy]

Some people dream of having some land, but due to financial issues, never realise this dream.  Maybe schemes like this will help them?
I would like to see these plots for real.   Some are already sold.
I wonder if I could split my fields - I could put my feet up and retire!!
 
 

[robert waddell]

not as easy as everybody thinks    first hurdle is planning this can take years and costs a fortune depending on how short sighted the council is   then fencing the individual plots   and the biggest problem access and shared access with maintenance   and the close proximity of your neighbours     it would be like a council housing scheme   with not so much land as some of them have

[Roxy]

With the popularity of smallholding, down to TV programmes and the like, there is a huge demand for allotments and small plots of land.  I thought the country was being encouraged to  be a little more self sufficient, and grow their own food?  Schemes like this should surely be encouraged - not that it should be allowed  all over the place.  And I would like to see some restrictions as to how the plots are kept - I can just imagine some people would create an eyesore. 
I read not long ago that local councils were asking farmers to rent pieces of land for people to grow food on - I assume they would agree to a change of use for these schemes.
As to the planning - the place I mentioned has got planning.The way round it is to have mobile wooden sheds, like a mobile animal shelter that can be moved.  As I understand it, a wooden building is only classed as temporary anyway.
Having said that, I do wonder if the planning permission is for say 3 years, and then you would have to re apply for lawful use (which they can, and do turn down sometimes!)
 
 
 

[YorkshireLass]

I think if you go in fully aware of the possible pitfalls then fine, but the wording is just too vague. I don't trust it. Why are there no acreages for the plots? Why no FAQ list? I dunno...

[SteveHants]

Some people dream of having some land, but due to financial issues, never realise this dream.  Maybe schemes like this will help them?
I would like to see these plots for real.   Some are already sold.
I wonder if I could split my fields - I could put my feet up and retire!!

Yeah - Id quite like some land, but it ain't never gonna happen. It just seems to me that once you get out of the 'must own the land I farm' mindset (which took me some years to do, myeslf) there are better opportunities waiting for you.


At the end of this year I shall have sheep on about 190ac + odd, seasonal grazings.


This still makes me a smallholder, just one with a fighting chance of earning a living.

[Small Farmer]

This reminds me of a scam which ran on two sites near me.  Agricultural land was bought, divided into building plots and sold to careless investors for a massive profit.  The basis of the investment was that you were buying development plots far cheaper than they'd be worth when the planning permission came through.


Except that (1) both were green belt sites with snowballs-chance-in-hell of getting planning, and (2) the deal didn't cover the infrastructure which would have been needed to build.


Such schemes were made illegal a few years ago, firstly by requiring th promoters to be FSA registered but secondly by defining the marking-out of plots as development.  Strikes me there's an awful lot of money making potential here for the promoter, so I'd check the details very thoroughly.