What to do with plot of land

peachyprice

Another vote for horses if it's suitable. Once you've set it up maintenance is minimal and will cause little disruption to to your day to day life.

lostinrates

I'd say two acres is too small for year round grazing for horses really ideally. And it's slightly different owning horses on two acres and managing it as. Tenant than it is being the land owner/tenant and not in control when the longterm interest is the land. Particularly if its old grassland.

(Though it would give you a good return if you could let to a horse owner)

Not just too small for the amount of grass , (after, all that's great for some ponies and horses to have restricted or no grass) but for things like good longer term parasite control.

I'd also caution against assuming it would have no impact on your home because its amazing how noisy one person, or one person and their kids, can be visiting their ponies. . And consider they do this before and after work, all year round, and large tracts of weekends.

The field then needs maintaining, which is hard to get people who rent a field to do. (Its not that minimal.....or shouldn't be....it takes us enough of the year in big jobs and week in small jobs).

Agricultural lets are also tricky beasts with particular rules and rights for tenants.....for stays longer than a few months in summer there we would not let one of our fields without an agreement drawn up by someone who understood agricultural tenancies.

Remember as well, you'll need to be PL insured (which you should be anyway) but should be very, very much less than if charged grass livery rather than let the field.

I am really not trying to be pessimistic, I know it sound like it! , because it can work out great often, more often than not, but two acres is on the small side without stables or a barn though this still might and this might be your best solution particularly if you can find someone with two small ponies .

But please consider the whole picture, make sure you are properly protected and eyes wide open. . I am typing as someone who has a livery yard, a happy one and I have my self rented fields in such arrangements and been lucky, but also seen the arrangements go wrong...not least when small acerages like this see neighbours call RSPCA or bhs welfare officers in the winter months when they are poached and bare and not enough forage has been put out. which though not the land owners fault can be embarrassing, distressing for them.

You are more than likely to get lovely tenants and enjoy watching their ponies. . I just feel that you need to cover your back too. .

lostinrates

cte1111 wrote: »

The problem with allotments, rather than farming use, is that allotments tend to come with fences, sheds and other structures. This is considered development and does require planning permission. It's not as clear cut as you claim I'm afraid.

There is also the possible issue that allotments might be used for leisure purposes so again not strictly agricultural use. There's lot of information on the Internet, both for and against whether allotments need PP, however I have seen it enforced against people who took a field and turned it into mini-gardens. They were forced by the council to remove all dividing fences and structures.

Here's an indepth consideration of the issue:
http://ari.farmgarden.org.uk/documents/Digging_Below_the_Surface_Final.pdf

Fwiw, horses often have had same contentious issues surrounding them. Technically grazing is fine but feeding them out of a bucket in the field used not to be, Not sure of that ever changed.

Things like putting jumps in a field etc can cause issues in just the same way, but fewer people do that.

thriftwizard

A lot depends on, quite literally, the lie of your land, as well as how much time & energy you have available to put into it. Letting it out as grazing might be quick & easy, and horses/ponies aren't the only possibility - I know several people with small flocks of rare breed sheep, or alpaca, who rent small fields to keep them in. But personally, I'd want to use it myself & I'd be looking at things like soil type, aspect, water sources & drainage, and provided there's somewhere suitable to site it, I'd invest in a polytunnel where I'd raise seedlings, mostly for sale. That's where the biggest return is, in plants, or so friends in horticulture reliably inform me! I'd have a run for chickens, not posh pets but ordinary brown laying hybrids, (£1.10 each as day-olds, this year, and broody bantams can do the job of raising them for you) and be selling eggs from my gate as well as producing top-quality compost. Provided it's a long-term home, I'd plant an orchard & have a big fruit cage, even if it was just bamboo poles wrapped with old net curtains, again with farm-gate sales in mind as well as producing stuff for our own use; fruit trees & bushes take very little work in return for quite a high-value crop, which can be mulched with your chicken manure & underplanted with herbs/perennial veg.

Then there's nuts, another low-input crop. Or even things like dye-stuffs - madder, woad, weld - where you can sell the seeds for others to raise their own, as well as the relevant part of the plant dried for use by those who haven't the room themselves.

Actually I'm just green with envy & would love the chance to get my hands on even half an acre!

brownhandbag

If you let for horses you will also need to apply for PP change of use from agri to equestrian.
I would suggest putting a card up in the local famers feed supplier, eg mole Valley farmers to advertise the grass. Good grass is worth £50 an acre so you can do a deal to get it cut and taken away.
Also you can keep geese for eating. 2 acres will feed 18 geese. They graze continually. PM me if you need more goose info If you stick with poultry/2 legged animals then you don't need any paperwork under 50 birds.

We have a 2.5 acre field and I have a farming background. Have done a potato patch the last 2 years which we sell as freshly dug new pots @ £1 a kilo and they sell really well in somerset.

also you should check out campinmygarden website

RHYSDAD

Bees need all the help they can get! Cultivate half of it perhaps and sow with a nectar/pollen rich wildflower mix, sit back once it's grown and watch the bees dance all summer. You won't get a monetary return but you will get one for your soul....

lostinrates

brownhandbag wrote: »

If you let for horses you will also need to apply for PP change of use from agri to equestrian.
I would suggest putting a card up in the local famers feed supplier, eg mole Valley farmers to advertise the grass. Good grass is worth £50 an acre so you can do a deal to get it cut and taken away.
Also you can keep geese for eating. 2 acres will feed 18 geese. They graze continually. PM me if you need more goose info If you stick with poultry/2 legged animals then you don't need any paperwork under 50 birds.

We have a 2.5 acre field and I have a farming background. Have done a potato patch the last 2 years which we sell as freshly dug new pots @ £1 a kilo and they sell really well in somerset.

also you should check out campinmygarden website

You can graze horses on agricultural land without change of use. (Unless the law has changed). We last looked into this three years ago pretty much to the day. . Different councils may of course enforce differently.

technically you cannot feed them.. Never once in all the areas I have kept horses or looked at buying land (many over the last few years) has a call to the council met with anything other than a 'yes, fine' to grazing only. Shelter, jumps etc no, but just grazing is generally fine...a call to your local planning office will confirm if this is ok.

It's actually seen as ' a good thing' on much agricultural land now as part of 'agricultural diversification'.

brownhandbag

Agreed Lostinrates, as you say ok just to graze horses but anything more and change of use is needed. Saying that most stuff around me does tend to get retrospective planning change easily enough...unless is something/someone really contentious.

lostinrates

brownhandbag wrote: »

Agreed Lostinrates, as you say ok just to graze horses but anything more and change of use is needed. Saying that most stuff around me does tend to get retrospective planning change easily enough...unless is something/someone really contentious.

And some don't require change of use at all. I was allowed to expand to livery from agricultural use with no planning permission at all.


Just so long as I don't put jumps up in fields or erect field shelters. The latter is somewhat a redundant restriction on larger agricultural holdings, but doesn't help op.

RAS

Just be really really careful about letting anyone rent land off you; it is all to easy to create an agriclutural tenancy if you do not understand the rules.

You need evidence that the renter vacated the tenancy within the 12 month period. It may be better to rent to another person the next year unles you understand the rules.