WE NEED YOUR HELP
Hi everyone, you may have recently seen the news that the Shepherd’s Hut has been given an enforcement notice by Warrington Borough Council. There has been a lot of speculation around this notice and we would like to take the opportunity to shed some light on the situation.
The council have said that we have changed the use of the land without planning permission. You’ll see the comments below from the council and our response to their points. We want everyone to understand our point of view and why we have appealed the council’s enforcement notice.
We’ve received such great support from our local and the wider community and we really appreciate anyone taking the time to stand up for us and what we believe is an asset to the community!
Councils view: Breach, without planning permission to retail space.
Our response: As an agricultural business we can sell directly to the public via ‘farm gate sales’. This means we can sell any and all produce that is created by the farm on our land without having to apply for planning permission to change the use of the land to a retail space.
Council view: Car park and access.
Our response: The access and hard standing around the access to our farmland by the bus stop on Higher Lane was in place before we purchased the land over ten years ago. This access does not have any legal restrictions indicating that it can only be used by agricultural vehicles.
The Council object to the replacement of the reinforced grass system that we installed that allows customers to park off the main road and away from the bus stop. In our view it would have been an oversight not to provide this, especially with young children or less mobile customers visiting.
Councils view: Cease the sale of non-farm goods.
Our response: Our main farm produce consists of chickens, fresh eggs, fruit, jams, and farm harvested honey, which we sell straight from our farm and in our Shepherd’s Hut.
Our surplus eggs are used to create our own bakery products, we also offer some locally sourced produce alongside our own farm produce. So that we can support small local producers like ourselves. However, the Council are claiming that the baked goods cannot be classed as farm produce, even though all our bakery products are made by our Farm Manager in our Council approved kitchen, using our farm eggs and jams.
Our Shepherds Hut has been open for 3 years and is used and loved by many in our village community.
Our aim as a family has always been to offer high quality produce from animals who are well loved, have the highest welfare standards, and thrive as a result of our approach to natural farming.
Our main farm focus has always been to hatch and grow the numbers of rare breed chickens that are rapidly declining in the UK and share our love for small holding chicken farming with others. The revenue created from selling produce in our Shepherd’s Hut enables us to support our wider farming business and allows us to continue to hatch and breed our lovely hens.
Farming is tough, and developing a successful business is hard work - work that we love because our farm, our chickens, and our bees, help us to create products that we are proud to share with our local community.
Unfortunately, since opening our Shepherds Hut, we haven’t received support from Warrington Borough Council. The Council are now trying to enforce restrictions on our small family business which will make it much more difficult for us to share our farm produce with our lovely, supportive locals.
The government is actively encouraging farms to diversify while reducing farm subsidies, yet councils are actively restricting this by using their planning departments to stop diversification. It is really disheartening that we have to battle the council when in reality they should be trying to support what we are doing. It doesn’t seem fair that complaints from just a few individuals, affects all the local people that love what we are trying to do.
This is why we are asking for your help! If you love what we do and want us to continue to provide farm produce and locally sourced goods from our Shepherd’s Hut, we would be hugely grateful if you could make your support known and comment on our appeal for the Councils enforcement notice. All comments would need to be submitted by the 7th of August 2023, and comments can be added via the link below.
Planning reference: 3322774