Cheshire East confirms investment in farming community

While the pressure is on councils to sell off their farms to raise revenue in this time of austerity, one local authority has outlined its commitment to bolster them.

Cheshire East, home to Chancellor George Osborne, boasts swathes of rich farming land as part of its 5,119-acre estate, and now its farmers are set to benefit.

UK farming has suffered under the regime of reduced Government subsidies and now the industry is to take a further hit in a round of local authority cost-cutting.

But Cheshire East Council’s Cabinet member for prosperity, Councillor Jamie Macrae, is confident that local farming can survive and is calling on the shire authorities to think again.

He said: ’We need to encourage farmers of the future. If we don’t, our rich and wonderful heritage of farming will disappear, which is why we have agreed that maintaining and encouraging farming here in Cheshire East will be one of the authority’s core objectives going forward.

’The Council strongly supports national food security and investing in the future of farming.’


Cheshire East’s farming community is profitable. The estate generated a gross income of approximately ’632,000 in 2010/2011 and is worth in the region of ’32 million.

This week, Cheshire East Council agreed to take forward a favourable policy for its farming fraternity to retain its holdings and to continue to provide opportunities into the farming industry.

Cheshire East Council’s farms estate includes approximately 53 acres of woodland and lets a total of 72 farmhouses and buildings.

The Council’s current strategy, inherited from the former Cheshire County Council, was based on a policy of developing and improving farming provision by giving opportunities to people wanting to enter the industry.

In 2001, it was agreed to reorganise the estate, retaining a range of farm types and sizes, but increasing the number of larger entry-size farms to provide a springboard for tenants into the private sector.

Cheshire East’s Cabinet has now agreed to continue with this strategy, which, when mature, will result in a marginally smaller farm estate better able to continue to thrive, develop and compete.

The authority plans to evolve the estate to provide 10 medium and 27 larger size ’entry level’ farms. Tenancies have typically been 15-year fixed term farm business tenancies, but a review will be undertaken to encourage long-term investment by stakeholders.