THE LAST FEW WEEKS

Last week was trench digging week. We needed to put in automatic drinkers for the new pig paddocks. As 150m of pipe needed to be laid we hired a mini-digger for the job. It took longer than expected, as all jobs seem to, as the ground was rock hard. I left Neil to it in the drizzle as boys like their toys. I also asked him to dig a large whole in the orchard so I could put Smokey's ashes in it. (Smokey was my old horse). I'm sure I said a hole and not a bloomin' crater!

Over the last three weeks we have had 3 alpaca babies born. One girl and two boys. One one pictures is Merlin not long after he had first stood up.

We have 2 more due but not until the end of August.

We have also had a pig population explosion and now have an extra 29 piglets. The pig above is Portia after giving birth to 6 piglets. She ended up with eight and found the whole experience exhausting, not surprising as she gave birth on one of the hottest weekends. She took her time about it as well as it took her 4 hours. Tallulah, our Large Black sow, had the same number in just over an hour, though she is more experienced.

I recently went on a willow course at Rutland Willow which is at Ashwell, so not very far from me. I learnt to make a pheasant, a fish on a rod and a mini hurdle. The pheasant is shown above.

When the willow I planted, earlier in the year, has grown I will be able to make some more or that's the plan anyway.

THE PLANNING STORY

The route to obtaining planning permission for an agricultural dwelling is long, frustrating and expensive. We had hired an Agricultural Consultants to deal with the business planning and a Planning Consultant for the planning side of things.

http://www.newlandowner.co.uk/

http://heatonplanning.co.uk/

We never imagined that to get planning permission in the open countryside for a new residential dwelling was going to be easy, but boy do you have to jump through hoops to prove your intentions are genuine.
The main part to the planning process was satisfying the Financial and Functional Test which is what is says it is. To obtain permission you need to be running, or intending to run, an agricultural business that is financially viable and you also need to have a functional need to be on the site. So financially the holding needs to support one full time worker in both time spent and annual wages. It's open to debate what exactly these are but we worrked on about 40 hours per week and wages of £18,000.
The council used there own consultant to assess our application and business plan, which don't forget had been put together by NewLandOwner who are experienced farmers themselves and have seen and helped many smallholdings like ours.
The council consultant judged that our business plan was not financial viable. He had used systems to assess the plan that are used for large automated farms where one man is able to look after lots of animals due to the systems used. We and NewLandOwner argued that a manual smallholding where no machinery is used could not be assessed in the same way but to no avail. After lots of correspondence we finally withdrew the application so we could reassess our position. We reapplied including our alpaca business in the plan. We had intended to breed alpacas later on after we had obtained planning permission due to the high cost of a starter herd however our hand was forced due to fact that the council refused to see our side and seemed intent on stopping our application. As far as we all could see we had covered all bases and done lots of research on other similar applications. We had spent thousands of pounds not only on the land in the first place but fencing, animal housing, livestock not to mention the consultants fees. They couldn't doubt we were serious, could they and that we were not speculators trying our luck. We really did want to work and needed to live in the countryside.
To cut a very long story short the application was refused by the planning officer, though it did take several frustrating months for him to come to that conclusion. So, we immediately made our appeal, which ended up being an informal hearing. I attended this hearing with "an army" of people. Two from the planning consultants, two from NewLandOwner and two the alpaca breeder where we have bought our herd from. Seven against two, we couldn't loose!
After a fairly intense morning of questions came the site visit. The inspector needed to see that we were actually keeping livestock and running a business. He couldn't fail to see that we were doing that.
After that we just had to wait for his decision, which could take up to eight weeks. But within a week we had it. YES YES YES we had won. We could hardly believe it. All the hard work and stress had been worth it and we could now really get down to business and not worry about planning details every day.
Basically, if you're serious about working and living in the countryside do your homework, expect plenty of knock backs and get the right help. Consultants might seem expensive but the right ones are worth their weight in gold. Don't give up and remember if it was easy everyone would be at it. You need to made of tough stuff to start a new countryside business and apply for planning permission all at the same time.

How it all started

After deciding back in 2005 that I didn't want to continue working in an office, Neil and I started to look for some land to buy. After several disappointments, over the next 18 months, at auctions and losing out with closed bids I happened to see 15 acres for sale in Rutland. We immediately went to see it followed by a visit to the estate agents office to express our interest. After a couple of days we were advised that a closed bid would be required, which is what we did and to our surprise the land was ours. That was in October 2006 and just before Christmas the deal was done and we owned 15 acres with a large barn.
Once we new our offer had been accepted I set about deciding what it was were going to do with our new plot. I found on the internet and contacted NewLandOwner, a smallholder consultancy firm, giving practical advice to anyone new to smallholding including livestock, horticulture, legislation and planning issues. Visit www.newlandowner.co.uk
We attended one of their "Getting Started" weekend courses which gave us an insite into all aspects of smallholding and helped us decide where we wanted to start and what livestock to choose. We also used their planning consultancy service. They helped us throughout the planning process, but more about that later as that is a topic in itself.
Not shy of a new challenge we ploughed in (pardon the pun). Not only had we bought 15 acres but started a business we had no experience of and applied for planning permission for a residential dwelling.If we wanted to change our lives we might as well get on with it I thought.
So we bought 50 hens and 4 rare breed pigs, 2 young boars (Keith and Brendan) to fatten for pork and 2 gilts Tallulah and Lily for breeding. The hens soon started laying so we had eggs to sell and keeping pigs was fun as they can be very entertaining. Though they are not for the meek and mild as when you have 14 porkers in a paddock, as we have at the moment, they can be pretty boisterous at feeding time. Pigs don't have table manners and it is every pig for itself come feeding time.
To be honest as long as you have got some common sense keeping livestock shouldn't present any real problems. You just need to now the legal requirements and NewLandOwner were always and still are on hand if we need any help or advice.
By April I had moved my horses over as well which made life a bit easier though we still had to travel from Nottingham every day and at that time we were both still working full time as well.
In the meantime I had also found a good planning consultant that was willing to help us. I had contacted several but decided on Heaton Planning www.heatonplanning.co.uk
I'd like to say they helped us glide through the planning process but I'm sure that is not possible. It's more of an uphill stony track with many pitfalls along the way.
Towards the middle of 2007 that's where we were, starting with our new venture and looking to put in a planning application.

Cosy Dub Farm

Over the next few weeks I will be starting to give details of what we have been up to at Cosy Dub Farm over the last three years, starting with our first contact with livestock, our long planning battle and how we started with 4 pigs and presently have 61.

I will also be giving updates of the weekly goings on at the smallholding.