4 replies to this topic

[cleaner]

We are wondering if anyone can help us. We became a Community Interest Company (CIC), a children's charilty, in February 2011 and have a ten year lease on five acres of agricultural land which has one poly tunnel on. We set 72,000 seeds and have grown our own plants. We also have set up a small children's petting farm which is known as a care farm for children who cannot relate to adults but can relate to our goats, cows, shetland pony, rabbits and sheep. We also have sown two acres of maize with a view of charging an entrance fee to help boost our coffers.

We had a visit from an enforcement officer a couple of days ago who told us that we needed to apply for planning permission for our children's farm area. We haven't as yet made any charge to enter the children's farm but we were thinking in terms of £3 adults and £2 children. He also told us that we couldn't grown our two acres of maize to make a maze maize puzzle and that we would require planning permission to grow the maize. Also we couldn't sell our flowers and plants even though we have grown them from seeds ourselves.

We would be grateful for any help in answering these queries. I am afraid we are not farmers we are a children's charity and we are all volunteers.

[che]

Hi Cleaner,

Dragged up an old topic that is relevant so what you need to do is just call it a care farm and operate a small farming business ie sell a few eggs or plants. Sadly you are dealing with a jobsworth who can not see a good community interest project when it hits him in the face.

What exactly do they want you to apply for?

Are you registered with the NCFI

We operate Care Farm feel free to get in touch if you need any help

[Jeff]

Hi Cleaner,

Dragged up an old topic that is relevant so what you need to do is just call it a care farm and operate a small farming business ie sell a few eggs or plants. Sadly you are dealing with a jobsworth who can not see a good community interest project when it hits him in the face.

What exactly do they want you to apply for?

Are you registered with the NCFI

We operate Care Farm feel free to get in touch if you need any help

[Jeff]

Hi Cleaner,

Dragged up an old topic that is relevant so what you need to do is just call it a care farm and operate a small farming business ie sell a few eggs or plants. Sadly you are dealing with a jobsworth who can not see a good community interest project when it hits him in the face.

What exactly do they want you to apply for?

Are you registered with the NCFI

We operate Care Farm feel free to get in touch if you need any help

Hi Dave

Thank you for your offer of help.. We are members of the NCFI also the FCFCG and FARMA. I said previously were incorporated in February this year and we have sunk a lot of time and effort and money in to our care farm and we wish it to succeed. We are the only care farm in Lincolnshire and we have received countless enquiries from organisations wishing them to use our facilities. We had a run in with this particular enforcement officer last year about retailing from our farm gate so this year we set our own seeds and grew our own plants with the help of the children with learning disabilities. Our name is North Thoresby Community Plant Nursery & Children's Care Farm CIC. This enforcement Officer tells us that we don't have enough animals of the same type ie we only have 2 cows and he thinks we should have more to be called a farm. Therefore if we don't get more cows he feels that we ought to apply for planning to be a farm attraction which we are not in essence. As yet we have not charged any entrance fee but feel we would like to to help with the upkeep of the stock. I suppose we could ask people for a donation of a suggested amount. This way we feel that we don't have a change of use from an agricultural farm.

With regards to the selling of our own grown plants we are averaging approximately £200 a week on sales and as far as our maze maize is concerned we feel that we may only get one month of trading from the maize before we have to harvest it.

We have a lot of volunteers and people relying on our care farm and we just need to progress it forward without this man as you say doing a jobsworth on us. By the way the lottery gave us £10,000 last week and this has gone along way to moving our project forward. Our website is still under construction but it can be found at thoresbycarefarm.com

May I thank you for your offer of help. We are just a little concerned about the whole episode.

Many thanks
Woodland
(Jeff Brackenbury)

[che]

Hi Jeff,

You have a real plonker there

Ask him to supply you with the legislation relating to what constitutes a farm and the number of animals you need. With a bit of luck he might be daft enough to go and look for it . It would keep him out of circulation for a while. From the desciption on your website you will have a holding number which should be enough evidence that a farming operation is being carried out. Considering the cuts to such services you would think they would be doing all they could to support you.
I would contact your MP this is just the sort of nonesense that Pickles is trying to eradicate.