Farming union the Landworkers’ Alliance has called for updated guidance for local planners to enable UK farmers to live on or next to their land
The Landworkers’ Alliance (LWA) has warned that a lack of housing for new entrant farmers and food producers could be a major impediment to building climate-resilient food security in the UK.
The organisation called for new government guidance for local planners, arguing that it was crucial for farmers to live on or next to their land to be as responsive as possible.
“The heatwaves and drought this summer have put this into sharp focus,” it stated. “Farmers have had to respond to unexpected wildfires, they’ve had to continually keep an eye on the behaviour and wellbeing of their livestock through intensely hot weather, they’ve spent hours irrigating vulnerable crops late into the night, and have been starting work early in the cooler hours of the morning to avoid dangerous working conditions.”
The LWA posited that housing was essential to the successful management of any farm, with growers needing to be “present, responsive and flexible at all times”.
Guidance of planners was outdated, it said, with national planning policy undervaluing the role of farmers in the local economy and planning criteria failing to understand unconventional or complex farming systems.
“On-farm housing for landworkers is a food security and climate issue,” the organisation stated. “It is now abundantly clear that the UK can no longer rely on importing its food – particularly the vast majority of its fruit and vegetables – from regions overseas that are under growing stress from the impacts of global warming and extreme weather. If the UK is to build a food-secure future, then we urgently need to upscale homegrown food production by increasing the number of farms and food producers across the UK and enabling new entrants to take up climate-resilient farming.”
The UK government’s new National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) sets out the overarching rules for planning policy in England, and the LWA has called for updated guidance for local planners, local planning committees and agricultural appraisers.
“This new guidance needs to enable the implementation of the development plans referred to in the NPPF, and equip planning authorities with the relevant information and knowledge to be able to grant permission for agricultural dwellings which benefit UK food security, nature and climate,” it said.
