Council to look at future of its farms estate

The council's farm estate aims to helps people start their farming career

An inquiry is set to take place into the future of Cornwall Council's 10,800-acre (4,370-hectare) farms estate as councillors have been told selling it could cut the authority's debt.

The council agreed to a three-month study of the estate, which included 81 farms and aimed to help people enter the industry, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

Tim Dwelly, cabinet member for economic regeneration and investment, said he was told selling the farms could be the "number one thing" to reduce the council's £1.2bn debt.

He told councillors: "My own hunch is there might be some new uses for some of the land, but I don't expect there to be a radical getting rid of council farms."

'Needs to be profitable'

He told the council's sustainable growth scrutiny committee on 29 July: "I don't want people to pretend that's what's happening, as it clearly isn't going to be the priority for the administration to do that."

The council's acting head of property, Jonny Alford, said that, since a 20-year farms estate strategy was introduced in 2019, some financial issues had arisen, with pressures on capital spending.

He said: "The estate needs to be profitable and revenue returns are narrow.

"Rents do not go up in line with costs, but costs go up in line with inflation."

He said dairy farming was at the heart of the council's estate but was expensive to deliver on a small scale.

A report to the committee suggested there could be alternative land use for its farms, including the provision of schools, housing and solar farms.

Independent councillor Cllr Andrew Mitchell (St Ives West & Towednack) questioned whether the estate brought people into farming.

"After five or maybe 10 years, they should be moving on to allow the next opportunity to happen for somebody."

Mr Alford said that, since 2019, 12 farms had been re-let, two tenants moved to larger properties and eight new tenants were brought in.

'Food security'

Reform UK councillor Roger Tarrant, who represents Redruth North, said there was "a significant and valid concern around food security".

He told the committee: "It's important that we allow availability for food production in our county. Once those skills are lost, they're sometimes lost forever."

He added: "It's important that we retain the county farms and we don't come up with an alternative where more housing requires more food."

The capital programme for the farms estate is currently £16m, including £10m invested in farmhouses and other work.

Liberal Democrat Luke Rogers (St Ives East, Lelant & Carbis Bay) said: "If we're spending £16m for 80 properties, that's resulting in about £200,000 per business unit.

"Is it morally right for us as a council to be investing that amount on all of these businesses when we could be focusing on other businesses?"