[Helen Pearson]

Hello all!
New to the group but I think we may become good friends 
Have recently bought our "forever home" which has included 5 acres of land. Majority of this is fields at the rear of the property, currently left to meadow after topping them at Easer.
We are considering renting 1 acre to a local couple who are starting a cut flower cottage industry - we would love to support local people and would love to have flowers on our land  :bouquet:and the butterflies and bees they encourage!
We are not aiming to take a huge amount of rental from this as we would like the couple to succeed. Currently we have been thinking £500 per annum with an annual increase in line with inflation. We plan to fit a separate water meter for them to cover all water costs. We plan to draw up a contract and they have agreed to any legal costs this will incur. In the long run, they are planning on poly-tunnels.
Would value anyone's comments, advice, words of wisdom etc. as am so new to this.
Many thanks!
Helen 

[Zebedee]

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/292272/fbs-farmrents2012-14mar14.pdf

[verdifish]

Hi Helen .if you think £500 per year for and acre i have to ask do you live in Kennaington or is it Chelsea

[chrismahon]

Sounds rather expensive for a bare field, but if it has water perhaps not? Do they actually want mains water? I would have thought the cost of it was so high it wipes out any profit from flowers. Are the boundaries in good condition, because they won't want livestock wandering through their crop?

[Bionic]

Yes £500 per year sounds expensive. You/they also need to consider the poly tunnels. Will they need planning permission and if so are they likely to get it?


While an unseen poly tunnel might escape the eyes of the planners if they run a business from there then things need to be above board.

[Backinwellies]

If they will pay £500 then you are on to a winner!   Ag rent would be much less then this.   Do you really want to overlook lots of plastic .... cos that is what you will see not lovely flowers and butterflies. Are you sure you wont have a use for this acre yourself in a couple of years?  You haven't said what you plan to do but any animal enterprise soon expands and less that 4 acres wont go far.
 

[Helen Pearson]

Thank you to all that have replied. Your thoughts and comments are really helpful. The land in questions is away from our house so would only be seen in the distance. And no, not in Chelsea Ha ha!! Beautiful East Sussex Weald! It's good to know what might be thought of as an unrealistic rent - we honestly didn't have a clue. But we will leave it to them to suggest what the feel is reasonable and take it from there. They didn't actually seem that shocked when the £500 was mentioned but we will see.
Agree about the poly tunnels and will have a conversation with council to see if there may be restrictions.
As regards the water - they seemed to want access to the mains water which we have in one of the paddocks/ fields but not sure how they plan to get it to the far field. I don't think I want pipes running across the other fields so there may have to be some dialogue here.
We haven't really thought long term about animals etc. If we did buid up to that, then it would be on a very, very small scale - both work full time. My ambition is to have some pigmy goats but they don't need a big area. At the moment I am happy as anything with my fruit and veg growing!
Thanks again everyone - will let you know if anything progresses. 

[cloddopper]

My own experience of flowers in a single 15 foot wide 30 foot long poly tunnel has made me a marked man so to speak.

 Flowers all year round in poly tunnels will most likely need electric specialist lighting & heat & forced ventilation unless they are just going to try and grow in summer when every one else has them and can't sell them because of the gluts.