Cornwall Council has launched a three-month inquiry into the future of its vast farmland estate amid suggestions that selling to developers would help to cut its £1.2 billion debt. Tim Dwelly, Independent cabinet member for economic regeneration and investment, said he had been told that selling its 10,800-acre portfolio of farmland was the “number one thing” it could do to tackle its vast arreas. While Mr Dwelly told council members that a “radical” culling of Cornish farmland was unlikely, Reform UK representative Roger Tarrant raised concerns over the plan’s long-term impact on food security.
“It’s important that we allow availability for food production in our county,” he said, as per the BBC. “Once those skills are lost, they’re sometimes lost forever. It’s important that we retain the county farms and we don’t come up with an alternative where more housing requires more food.”
A report submitted to the council’s sustainable growth scrutiny committee suggested the land could be sold to solar farm, housing and school developers.
Mr Dwelly said: “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.
“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 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.”
It comes amid wider resistance to agricultural land across the country being used for housing and solar farm development, despite Government policy prioritising low-grade or previously developed sites for new projects.
A report from countryside charity CPRE warned last month that nearly a third of England’s mega solar farms are being built on high-quality farmland, and called on the Government to pivot its focus from renewable energy sites to rooftop generation.
“The geographic spread of solar energy generation on farmland is uneven, dependent more on the ease of connection to the grid and the profit margin for developers than a location … that makes sense to communities,” the non-profit said.
The Government has pointed to official guidance that “encourages renewable energy developments to use previously developed and non-agricultural land” and echoed the position of renewable firms including Solar Energy UK, who argued that “solar farms pose no threat to the UK’s food security” but instead “directly address climate change, which has been identified as [food security’s] greatest threat”.
Officials have also said that infrastructure developments can be unsuitable for poorer-quality land due to a lack of grid access, flood risk and terrain difficulties.
