£40m Welsh Farm Grant Scheme Due For Launch

It has just been announced that the Welsh Government and Rural Development Programme is to allocate £40m of funds is to a new Welsh farm grant scheme designed to help farmers reduce their carbon emissions and to improve their resilience and competitiveness within the industry, including through new diversification measures.   The scheme plans to distribute […]

Posted on January 10th, 2017 by

Why am I paying Business Rates on my stables?

Business rates as they are commonly referred to are actually called Non-Domestic Rates and can therefore apply to property classed as non-domestic whether it is used privately or as part of a business. Non-domestic rates are assessed on the properties annual rental value (rateable value) multiplied by the nationally set multiplier (unless the small business […]

Posted on December 22nd, 2016 by

Finance for Farm Diversification – and how to get it!

How to get finance for a diversification project. The main issue with financing a farm diversification project is that it often falls outside what traditional lenders are comfortable with.   This is typically because it’s a new venture and the lender is worried about it not working out.  Statistically only half of business start-ups make it […]

Posted on December 14th, 2016 by

Planning to Expand your Business?

How to get the Local Planning Authority on Board. With planning policy and controls becoming increasingly stringent, many local business are put off by the idea of large scale development or even redevelopment of their sites. Whilst we are under no illusions that the time and costs of large scale planning can be considerable, it […]

Posted on December 8th, 2016 by

Compensation – Water

water compensation

The most common occurrence of when someone needs to access your land is in relation to the installation or the maintenance of a utility company’s equipment such as water pipelines. Within Worcestershire and Gloucestershire the main water company will be Severn Trent and for places like Hereford and Ross on Wye it will be Welsh […]

Posted on November 25th, 2016 by

What do I do if a mobile phone mast operator wants to rent a site on my land?

As mobile phones become smarter and more critical to our daily lives, the demand on mobile phone masts to deliver phone calls and data has significantly increased in recent years. Added to this is the recent announcement of the Government policy to tackle mobile phone “not-spots” and also the roll out of the 4G and […]

Posted on November 8th, 2016 by

What else could I do with my farm buildings?

buildings

What else could I do with my farm buildings? We are often asked what else could I do with my farm buildings, particularly in recent months when all agricultural sectors seem to be struggling with low prices and high input costs. Alternative income streams can provide a stable income to level out the undulations of […]

Posted on October 28th, 2016 by

2016 – A busy Expert Witness year.

  We don’t talk about expert witness work much as it’s one of those areas that quietly happens and matters are almost always confidential. We have however been very busy in 2016 with various rural and development expert witness work so thought it worth detailing the sort of subjects we have dealt with: Report for […]

Posted on October 28th, 2016 by

CGT – How do I find my property’s 1982 value?

  Capital Gains Tax is due on the increase in the value of an asset when you dispose of that asset from when it was purchased or from 1982, whichever is the most recent. For example if you bought your property in 2000 for £450,000 and then sold it in 2016 for £600,000 you would […]

Posted on October 13th, 2016 by

How do I register my agricultural waste exemption?

A brand new digital service has replaced the paper and e-form options for registering an agricultural waste exemption.  Registration needs to be completed by October 2016.  The Environment Agency is encouraging farmers and other business to go online and register.  The new service has been designed to make online registration quicker and more efficient than ever before. […]

Posted on August 30th, 2016 by