Farming Today
25/09/2024 Brownfield passports, green belt planning, agri-environment schemes.
All week we’re looking at planning and the countryside. The government has announced plans for "brownfield passports", to fast track house building on brownfield sites. The countryside charity, CPRE, has welcomed the proposals to make brownfield sites the first choice for building new homes. It says we could build most of the homes we need on such sites and says this could be in rural areas, as well as urban ones.
Green belt land was originally designed to protect the countryside from urban sprawl but some parts of it have been developed, and they are now considered ‘grey belt’ land. There’s a general acceptance that some of this land will have to be built on - providing space for some of the new 1.5 million homes the government's pledged to build over the next parliament. We look at two council areas - one where thousands of new homes have been built in the countryside, another which is creating 1000s of hectares of new green belt.
2024 is the year when payments to farmers in England, from the old EU Basic Payment Scheme, or BPS, really start to go down. They will be phased out completely by 2027. For instance, a farmer who used to receive £50,000 under the pre-Brexit scheme, will this year receive £26,000. Instead farmers can now sign up to a new agri-environment scheme: the Sustainable Farming Incentive, or SFI. It has more than a hundred actions for which farmers are paid. They’re designed to improve nature habitats, lessen flooding, improve soil health and provide cleaner water courses, and more. We visit a field event which helps farmers navigate their way through the new schemes.
Presenter = Anna Hill Producer = Rebecca Rooney
- Broadcast on:
- 25 Sep 2024
- Audio Format:
- other
This is the BBC. This podcast is supported by advertising outside the UK. I'm sorry, I shouldn't be victim-blaming here. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, no. No. No. Honestly, when I started this, I thought only I'd have to do like four of these. I mean, it's unlimited to premium wireless for $15 a month. How are there still people paying two or three times that much? I'm sorry, I shouldn't be victim-blaming here. Give it a try at midmobile.com/switch, whatever you're ready. $45 up from payment equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three month plan only. Taxes and fees extra. Speed slower above 40 gigabytes of CDTails. Explaining football to the friend who's just there for the nachos, hard. Tailgating from home like a pro with snacks and drinks everyone will love. Any easy win. And with Instacart helping deliver the snack time MVPs to your door, you're ready for the game in as fast as 30 minutes. So you never miss a play or lose your seat on the couch or have to go head to head for the last chicken wing. Shop game day faves on Instacart and enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three gross reorders. Offer valid for a limited time. Other fees and terms apply. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, it's Anna Hill here with the Farming Today podcast where we join farmers in the field to learn more about the government payments for environmental schemes and planning. What will Labour's plans for development on Greenbelt, Greybelt and brownfield sites mean for all of us? We ask a lot of our land and there's only a certain amount of it. So we have to be smart about where we choose to put new developments. We'll have more on that a little later. First though, 2024 is the year when farmers in England really feel the difference in their payments, switching from the old EU Basic Payment Scheme or BPS to the new environmental and management schemes. The old system will be phased out completely by 2027. For instance, a farmer who used to receive £50,000 under the pre-Brexit scheme will this year receive £26,000. To make up the difference, farmers are joining the new Sustainable Farming Incentive or SFI. It has more than 100 actions for which farmers are paid and farmers can choose their own selection within limits. It's designed to grow nature habitats, lessen flooding, improve soil health and provide cleaner water courses and more. Companies like Hutchinson's is a family firm which sells farmers' seeds and fertilisers. They also give advice on the new system. I went along to one of their field events. Feel free to come along in. So this is the Celia. Fantastic for pollinators. This very flat but productive farmland in North Cambridge might look rather uninspiring, but the plots here have been planted up with seed mixes which provide flowers for pollinators, seeds for birds and nitrogen fixing as well. And under the Sustainable Farming Incentive, farmers are paid to grow this alongside their crops. Georgina Wallace, head of Environmental Services at Hutchinson's, will be the deep soil pit which demonstrates to farmers visiting the site exactly what different SFI actions can make to their farm. We're just coming up to a big ditch that's been dug here. That's about my height, five foot or so. Having a good understanding of your soil is vital. So this soil here that we're looking at today is not an easy soil. It's quite a tight soil. We've got a fair bit of compaction here. There's no air under there. Yeah, and that's why we've selected some of the mixes that we've got here today. So where we're standing now, we're looking at a variety of our cover crops. So these all offer different rooting structures which is then breaking up that soil, which in time will build up better fertility and a better soil structure. But it's also providing a wealth of environmental benefits. So it's stopping that soil runoff, it's protecting the soil, and it's building that fertility for the following crop. There's one other big thing that people are being asked to do. It's not disturbed the soil too much. No till is not disturbing the soil at all. Also joining us is Andrew Pitt's farmer in North Amptonshire. Now Andrew, you are here because you've been doing a lot of these things yourself on the farm. No till is a big step for most people. If you've been used to plowing and cultivating and turning the soil over, to go from that to not doing anything, it's a huge change. It's a change in mindset, changing farm management. We made this first step back in 2015 and your soils are more resilient. Have you seen that then? Yeah, definitely. We've seen in dry years it can hold water longer, hold nutrients longer, and in a wet time that carbon in your soil can hold on to the water. So it reduces the speed at which it leaves your field, reduces flooding downstream. The soil becomes more resilient. And with the weather patterns we're having now, that resilience is priceless. Defra has said there was a £358 million underspend over three years on the schemes given to farmers. Why do you think that happened and do you think that money will now go? It won't come back. Why it happened is really simple because the previous schemes we had were very owners. They were very black and white. You could only do this, very prescriptive. It was a disincentive. And as far as that budget's gone, yes, of course it's gone. Budget's never getting increased, do they? And what about the farmers visiting this event for advice? What do they think about SFI? My father always said politicians' events in subsidy is not farmers, but the money's out there for us to keep food cheap and keep the countryside farming. I think there's lots of questions. I'm not certain that everything really is what would work for me. Your money that you would have got under the European Union under the basic payment scheme disappears in 2027, do you think that these schemes are enough to replace what you used to get? No. No, in an answer. Norfolk farmer Chris Egglington there. The Labour Party Conference has heard the Prime Minister set out very clearly his ambition to build, not just houses, but green infrastructure and even new towns. And Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner told delegates. We will get written, building decent homes for working people. A new planning framework will unlock the door to affordable homes and provide the biggest boost to social and affordable housing in a generation. To build those homes, planning restrictions are being relaxed, while involving local communities in decision making. All week we're looking at planning and the countryside. In a moment we'll be talking in detail about brownfield sites, but first the Greenbelt and the Greybelt. Greenbelt land was originally designed to protect from urban sprawl, but some parts of it have been developed and they're now considered greybelt land. There's a general acceptance that some of this land will have to be built on providing space for some of the new 1.5 million homes. Misumi Bakshi from BBC Look East has been looking at how councils in her area are changing their plans. We're in Chompington Meadows on the outskirts of Cambridge. It's a name that conjures up images of a pastoral idyll. But it is in fact a housing estate where I'm standing used to be Greenbelt. When we bought here we probably didn't take into consideration the fact that it had been a Greenbelt, if I'm honest. I think it's a shame that so much of the Greenbelts were built on. Although I don't think this development's too bad because there's lots of trees if you look around all the roads we've got trees on them. It is nice to have the green space, but then with the population going up, obviously we need houses as well on the one to help we've got five children there. Labour's desire to build on the Greenbelt or greybelt is nothing new then. What used to be arable fields are plant breeding institutes now replaced with 1,200 homes. But there is something else. We're now walking through part of Chompington Meadows. Within the estate are these fields handed over by the developer to the Wildlife Trust, a country park rich in native species. We've got field scabias, there's a wild carrot there, a little yellow of ladies' bed straw, black nap weeds, common nap weeds, various red clover, a wide range of wildflowers, there's probably 30-40 species in here. Martin Baker is the Parks Conservation Manager. If Council's worth thinking about building on the Greenbelt, is this an example of how to do it? If Council's need to sort of release group out land for new housing, then absolutely this is the way they need to do it. But not just any old green corridor, we've got a wildlife rich one, a place where wildlife can thrive, but also people can actually enjoy wildlife on their doorstep. So it's about good planning in a head, good design and make sure that people care about it. That's it. So the Greenbelt is being built on. But what if I was to tell you, there was one part of the country where new Greenbelt was being created, and not a little, but a lot. Almost 4,000 hectares of new Greenbelt, with a loot into the west and Stephenage to the east, North Hertfordshire, the only Council to do so in recent memory. The question for its leader Daniel Allen, why? If you're going to allocate areas for housing, you have to balance that. We need to have new housing, 100%, but it needs to be in the right places, it needs to be suitable, it needs to be inclusive of different areas. This area isn't, this area is our new Greenbelt. Greenbelt or Greybelt, where we build homes will always court controversy. What's not in dispute is that many more are needed. Musumi Bakshi from BBC Le Kiste. Well, there's another designation, brownfield sites. These are urban areas which are abandoned or unused, and which the Labour government has said should be the first choice for building new homes. It estimates that the majority of new builds needed could be put in these areas, and it plans to introduce brownfield passports to ensure where proposals meet design and quality standards. The default answer is yes. The countryside charity CPRE has welcomed the move. Their planning policy manager is Lizzie Bandred Woodward. I think there's a bit of maybe a misunderstanding. Brownfield doesn't necessarily mean urban, although a lot of brownfield sites do tend to be in urban areas, town centres. But they can also be industrial sites in the countryside, or they can be run down areas within rural villages. So, brownfield just means a site that either had a building on or was in a previous mum-made use. The government's announced that it will be issuing brownfield passports. How do you think that would work? I think it's a great first step, and we're really pleased to see that the government are prioritising brownfield first, rather than using a countryside, we know that land is finite. However, there are concerns as to the practicalities of this, so we know that planning departments are already very overstretched and struggling to meet deadlines of planning applications already, so putting additional pressures on without giving extra resource to planning departments is an area of concern, but certainly the ambition is there, and I think the direction of travel should be supported. Is it the case, though, that the CPRE, which is supporting rural areas, is in favour of brownfield sites, because basically that stops building in countryside areas? Well, no, because it would involve infilling or what we refer to as infilling, so delivering sites that were previously used in the edge of rural settlements, or perhaps within villages. We know that good planning and good design, and actually, in order to build sustainable settlements, they should be walkable, they should be compact, and we shouldn't be using up land that could otherwise be used for food security, for renewable energy generation, perhaps for public transport. We ask a lot of our land in this country, and there's only a certain amount of it, so we have to be smart about where we choose to put new developments, and good planning practice would say that it's better to intensify or densify existing settlements rather than allowing sprawl, so-called ribbon development. There's an image, isn't there, that people who live in the countryside and want to protect the countryside basically don't want any building near them? So you'll deny that CPRE members are nimbies. Actually, we've found the opposite. It's true, we know that our members are really supportive of new affordable homes and high-quality homes, but there's a balance to be had. You know, nobody is under any illusion that there is not a housing affordable crisis going on right now. Our own research, we launched a state of rural affordable housing report last year, and it showed that it will currently take 89 years for somebody to obtain a social-rented property in rural England. It's really, really important that we are planning ahead to ensure that the rural communities continue to survive, but that doesn't necessarily mean that we need huge sprawling new developments in the countryside. It could just mean thinking a bit more smartly about the land that is available. Yesterday, depth for Secretary Steve Reed told me the government will be publishing a land use framework before Christmas. What difference would that make, do you think? CPRE, I'm really, really pleased to hear this. We've been advocating for land use strategy or framework for a really, really long time and we can't wait to see it. Lizzie Bondred Woodward from CPRE. That's all from us. I'm Anna Hill. The producer was Rebecca Rooney. Farming today is a BBC audio Bristol production. I'm Gabriel Gatehouse, and from BBC Radio 4, this is Series 2 of The Coming Storm. There's a divide in American politics between those who think democracy is in peril and those who think it's already been subverted, hollowed out from the inside. As America prepares to elect its next president, we go through the looking glass into a world where nothing is as it seems, and the institutions of the state are a facade. Listen, wherever you get your BBC podcasts.