Guidance for local authorities with rural estates

ACES Rural Practice Branch has produced a Good Practice Guide in association with key stakeholders to assist all local authority staff, members and others with an interest in rural/county farm estates to review and manage their assets successfully. The Branch, led by Stephen Morgan has brought together good rural estate asset review practices from council rural estate managers in England and Wales into a simple guidance note. In 2013, the Future of Food and Farming Review Group called “to see the farming industry and government working together to produce guidance that illustrates, for the benefit of local authorities, the advantages and possible returns from such holdings as a way of persuading them to retain or replace their farms.” (para 5.25). ACES is represented on the Tenancy Reform Industry Group (TRIG), the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs’ advisory body on the agricultural tenanted sector. The guidance has the full support of the other organisations that represent TRIG.

David Fursdon, the Future of Farming Chair said “I am delighted that the Rural Practice Branch of the ACES has worked with the Tenancy Reform Industry Group and produced this guidance. It sets out a holistic asset management approach which has worked well for a large number of private agricultural estates and should provide a profitable basis of operation for local authorities.”

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