Assembly Committee fears for the future of Welsh local authority-owned farms

21 December 2010

The Welsh Government should intervene to ensure the long term future of local authority-owned farms, according to the National Assembly for Wales’s Rural Development Sub-Committee.

Its inquiry found farmland is being sold off to ease council finances with little cash being ploughed back into either improving or adding to existing stock.

Local authority-owned farms are supposed to give people, who haven’t got the resources to set-up on their own, a foothold in the industry before eventually moving onto privately rented or even buying.

The Committee found in many cases this wasn’t happening as new farmers found there was little incentive to move off local authority-owned farms because of the relatively short rental terms for privately-owned land and other cost issues.

Concern was also raised over the Welsh Government’s official statistics which claimed the numbers of local authority owned farms had been increasing in recent years when further investigation found the reverse was actually true.

Rhodri Glyn Thomas AM is Chair of the Rural Development Sub-Committee.

“What we have here is a neglected but valuable sector, “ he said.

“My Committee colleagues and I understand why local authorities are under pressure to meet financial targets and perhaps some don’t see this as a priority area.

“But the future of our farming industry lies in part with those people trying to get a foothold in the land who perhaps can’t without extra support.

“The quality and accuracy of the statistics the Welsh Government holds on local authority-owned farms is another concern to us - as is the standard of some of these farmhouses which fall below those we would expect in normal housing, simply because they are treated as commercial premises.”

The findings of the Rural Development Sub-Committee have been presented in a letter to Elin Jones AM, Rural Affairs Minister for the Welsh Government.

ENDS