There has been incorrect reporting in the Daily Express (6 February) which claims the proposals within the Land Use Framework, published last week, would force the equivalent of 12,000 UK farms to close. This is absolute nonsense.
Our consultation sets out the case for land in England delivering multiple benefits, whether that be farming, nature recovery, housing or energy supply – all while protecting food security.
There is nothing in our analysis which suggests entire farms will be forced to change their land use. In many cases, land use change will make farms more profitable by diversifying their income streams and more resilient to increasingly extreme weather such as flooding and drought.
But the Government will not dictate to anyone how to use their land; the consultation has started a national conversation on land use and will seek the views of businesses, farmers and landowners to determine how England’s land can be used for the benefit of people and nature. It will be for individual business and landowners to make informed choices about their land using the most sophisticated land use data ever published.
Working with famers, landowners and businesses we will create a new approach where our land is used in a more strategic way for the benefit of people and nature.
A Government spokesperson said:
“This is a complete misrepresentation. The Land Use Framework will not tell anyone what to do with their land.
“Instead, it will be the most sophisticated data ever published on land use options so farmers and landowners can make better decisions for themselves on how to get the most out of their land and boost their profits.”
3 comments
Comment by Ruth Edwards posted on
What about the hundreds & hundreds of thousands of people who LIVE in the countryside?? Don't WE have a say at all?? You lot are so London centric. There's a whole world out here and a majority of this country's population you neither know or care about. Rich landowners invariably don't live in the countryside their choices and diktats affect, as here where Nicholas Johnston, a landowner in his bucolic Oxfordshire enclave, is taking all our Notts. countryside to use for his own greed by carpeting thousands of acres under solar panels which YOU will have to deal with in due course.
Comment by Craig Payne posted on
DEFRA, Reed et al have lost the trust of the agricultural sector. It would be fantastic if it felt like DEFRA was working with agriculture but at the moment it feels like food production is despite government policy and demonised instead of working hand in hand.
I just don't believe anything a government spokesperson says since the repetition of the same lines on APR and IHT continue to be trotted out when the truth is glaringly obvious. Consequently it shouldn't come as a surprise that farmer's don't trust government motivations for deciding to have a land use framework when their are so many more pressing matters at hand.
Comment by J. Bullivant posted on
Who are you consulting? I can't find anyone in Sheffield that has been consulted.