HEREFORDSHIRE Council’s cabinet will today be asked to sell all of its county farms.

It comes despite the council’s general, overview and scrutiny committee having recommended that only a partial sale of the estate is undertaken – along with the reorganisation of the remaining farms into a more progressive and commercial entity.

The decision to overturn that recommendation has been slammed by opposition councillors and the National Farmers Union (NFU) and the Tenant Farmers Association (TFA).

Should cabinet support the decision to sell its entire smallholdings estate, which comprises of around 4,800 acres dispersed throughout the county into 14 separate parcels of land and comprising 45 holdings, it would signal the end of more than 100 years of council farms in Herefordshire.

A report, which will be put before cabinet today, states that the reason for not pursuing a partial sale is that it would require the council to invest money it does not have, would reduce the opportunity to maximise the return on investment, and leave the council fulfilling a function – supporting farming – that is not a priority role and one which it does not do for any other employment sector.

It would also require significant capital investment to remove backlog maintenance which is unlikely to result in any significant improvement in rate of return on the capital invested or achieve the objective of farm progression, the report states.

TFA chief executive, George Dunn, said the cabinet had acted more like a ‘despotic oligarchy than democratically elected individuals’ for its lack of consultation and engagement with stakeholders.

John Harrington, chairman of Herefordshire’s It’s Our County opposition group, said tenant farms were the last ‘real tangible asset of substance’ owned by the authority.

He is calling for residents to contact their local councillors to ask what they are doing about the fire sale of the council’s ‘last bit of family silver’.

He said: “53 other local authorities are keeping their farms, rationalising them by upgrading the tenancy contracts and amalgamating some of the smaller land parcels to make larger, more viable farms.

“Rather than sell the farms, this is what the council’s own task and finish group and its own general overview and scrutiny committee recommended Herefordshire Council does. “Cllr Harry Bramer will ignore that today [to] recommend a total sale.

“Our council farm land has gone up in value by over 9 per cent, year on year average.

“That’s not a bad return. Let’s learn from the best practice of other authorities (like Devon, which has had its credit rating upgraded because of its council farm ownership), rationalise the tenancies, use the capital value to borrow against sensibly and keep the farms in local authority ownership.

“This should be a decision for full council not simply the seven members of the cabinet. When you sell something it’s gone.”

Opposition leaders, Councillor Anthony Powers of It's Our County, Councillor Terry James of the Liberal Democrats, Councillor Bob Matthews of the Herefordshire Independents, and Councillor Jenny Bartlet of the Green Party, have all signed a letter to cabinet calling for the decision on the future of the smallholdings estate to be made by full council.

Herefordshire Council’s cabinet was due to meet today (Thursday) at 2pm to decide on the future of the county farms.

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