News
Cash strapped Peterborough City Council to sell £9m farm estate
A farm estate owned by Peterborough City spanning 1,200 acres of prime grade 2 arable land and worth around £9m has been put up for sale to plug gaps in the council finances. Savills – one the UK’s largest agents – has been hired to sell the Newborough Estate, Thorney Road, Peterborough.
It describes the Newborough Estate as a mixed farming estate that includes a number of tenancies, with the majority being Farm Business Tenancies (FBT).
The estate extends in total to 1,218.15 acres (492.96 hectares) with there being 353.51 acres (143.05 hectares) of land with vacant possession.
Savills say all of the arable land is classified as Grade 2 on the Provisional Agricultural Land Classification Map.
“The soils sustain a diverse array of cropping including potatoes, sugar beet, cereals, maize and oil seed rape,” says promotional literature.
Savills describes the Newborough Estate as a mixed farming estate that includes a number of tenancies, with the majority being Farm Business Tenancies (FBT). IMAGE: Savills
“Included within the estate are 4 farmhouses, of which two will be available with vacant possession in October 2024, while the other two form part of an FBT.”
The sale is being offered in five lots.
Savills describe it as a “rare opportunity to acquire a large parcel of land in a productive farming area”.
A spokesperson for Peterborough City Council told the farming press that first reported the sale: “The council has been in the process of negotiating sales of its rural estate for the past two years, following a review of its finances carried out by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.
“As part of this process, areas of the rural estate were offered to tenants on a first refusal basis, and we remain in negotiations with tenants who have made offers.
“However, it is likely that parts of the estate will also be offered for sale on the open market, and we will announce updates in due course.”
The sale has been criticised by the Tenants Farm Association, which was formed in 1981 by a group of tenant farmers who felt that their interests were not being forcefully represented by existing bodies.
Today, the TFA says it is the only organisation dedicated to supporting all farmers who do not own the land that they operate.
Tenant Farmers Association chief executive George Dunn told Farmers Guardian that it was a “huge frustration” the sale was going ahead.
He spoke of years of “financial mismanagement” by the city council and regretted it was going ahead with the sale of a significant portion of its farms estate.
He told Farmers Guardian it would result in lost opportunity for new entrants and progressive farmers.
Mr Dunn said: “Under better management, the council taxpayers of Peterborough should have expected to have been able to harvest ongoing financial benefit year-on-year.”
He blames the 2021 review of the city council’s governance and finances by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) and the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) for bringing about the decision to sell the farms.
Link to Farmers Guardian here:
https://www.farmersguardian.com/news/4363825/peterborough-city-council-farms-sale
