21 replies to this topic

[surreydodger]

Hi, been meaning to get my diary started for ages and will have to back track a bit to cover the whole project.

A bit of background history and where we are 'coming from'.

We, being my hard working wife and I, being a near 50 yr old bloke who hates early mornings, moved into our small village in 2000, renting a small cottage. I worked in commercial property management at the time. On our exploration of the surrounding countryside, we discovered a tumbledown, but occupied, farmhouse and buildings. I asked locally who owned it and whether it might ever be up for sale? The wisdom was that the old boy who owned it with his family would never move which was fair enough in my book. Events moved on personally and I sold off my own business in 2007 and unexpectedly, at the same time the old farmer decided to sell up as well. He had 130 acres with his farm and I felt if we could sell our biz, we could put enough money tgether to get an agricultural mortgage and just about buy the place. From my perspective, it was perfect and ready to move straight in,,, I like 'tumbledown'

Unfortunately, althouh having a buyer in place for our company, it was a slow protracted affair and meanwhile, someone with deep pockets was able to walk in and put cash on the table. In turn, the new buyer applied to demolish the whole farm and erect his own palace which was subsequently turned down by planners,, quite rightly! But, he in turn he sold it onto another develpoer who put in for an even more adventurous affair and was given permission to go ahead. Sadly, the old tumbledown, rickety house and buildings have now all gone and been replaced by what the locals consider to be a supermarket style building. To each their own I say but I am somewhat disappointed that this is another small farm lost as the resulting dwelling and land is worth in the region of 5 or 6 million now and could never come back as a commercially viable farm

Still, the upshot was the developer over spent a little bit and had to sell of some of the land. We negotiated and bought 24 acres of grassland. The whole, comprises of a hill, or hillock as I prefer to call it. From the top you get the most wonderful views across the Weald, both N, S, E and W.

There is nothing there other than an access to the road, water and a lot of grass. The fencing was all barbed wire which I have removed due to a personal hate of the stuff and we are now in the process of putting in Devon Hedging and repairing the existing traditional hedges as needed.

We brought a dozen sheep off a friend who has been very helpful in showing us what to do. As a young lad, I grew up in the company of a farming family and all I wanted to do was get out of school and become a farmer. When I did finally escape Colditz (I hated the place and have never once had the inclination that schooldays where the best of my life!) I went straight to working on the land. I then got into agricultural college but had a car accident midway through in which I damaged my back. Nothing that would put me in a wheelchair but it was bad enough that I had to give up working in agriculture. Still, the dream remained to one day work the land So, our sheep were big step in that goal though a bit of a mystery to me. My experiences as they were of farming had never involved sheep so everything is an unknown,, other than dealing in muck and that animals tend to prefer grazing rather than being handled.

With our sheep grazing, we had to consider what would be the best way for us to make a living from our land. After a lot of consideration and several rejected ideas, we have chosen to produce free range duck eggs. We will have a few chooks as well but the main emphasis will be the ducks.

To accomodate this we needed to have a place to grade, mark, package and store the eggs. We also required somewhere to keep the feed along with an office, machine store and maintenance building. Thus we started our procedure towards getting planning to set up our farm which I'll get into next.

[surreydodger]

So, the first step towards building our farm was to seek permitted develpoment. I phoned the local planners and spoke with one of the officers who asked exactly what it was I intended to do. I explained everything; the three buildings which was split into an office one side and a egg sorting and grading room the other. The second was split between in half again with maintenance workshop one side and feed store the other. The third building was to be a machinery shed for stuff like tractor and farm implements. I also told them of my need for an access track, some 450 meters long and finally, the mobile poultry houses. They were a bit vague on the poultry houses as they could be sited at times within 400 mtrs of a residential house, though not always and then of course, there mobile to not a permanent structure. The upshot was I was told to put it all on an prior notice application along with a Design and Access statement along with the plans of the the three buildings.

The buildings are all traditional Sussex barn style made from timber with clay tile though the office/egg room is felt clad for now as I suspect long term this building will need to be made bigger. They kept harping on about poultry houses and needing a plan. As I hadn't found a supplier at the time that was a bit tricky so I sent them a sketch showing a shed on wheels basically, with a stong note attached to say this was just a perceived idea. They also kept pushing for how many of them there would be but again, this was a little hard to say as the number would fluctuate from time to time due to flock numbers varying. In the end I said ten but would vary.

I wrote a long D & A statment outlining our operation and how it would all work on a high ethical basis along with the poultry intergrating with our sheep flock. I made good reason and demonstrated for the need for the size of the buildings planned and took quite some considerable time to show how local farms had gone to become private homes and estates which showed there had been a diminishing of farm buildings (in use for agriculture in our locality. Pretty good I thought as I took the whole application by hand to the local planning office.

Within a week it was sent back as being rejected because there was no form of agriculture presently being carried out on the land,, i.e. land not in agricultural use. At first I kicked myself for not having put in the details that we already had sheep on the land and were growing grass for a hay crop. However, later I realised two things. One is how would anyone set up an agricultural holding where you needed the buildings in place first to practice what you wanted to do. Chicken and egg jokes abounded but it wasn't funny,,, ok,, a little smirk here and there. It turns out there is case law that you may build  an agricultural building even though you are not yet practising the form of agriculture you intend to use it for, otherwise, how could anything get started. Secondly, and the one which I now find infuriating, is that the planning officer decided there was no use going on despite not having any evidence to that decision. I had said in my D & A what I was going to do but nowhere did I say what was currently happening,, either doing or not doing.

So, the upshot was I had to put in a whole fresh application and start the 28 day period all over again. Time wasted by the planners and myself and for the sake of a quick phone call or email from them to enquire the true status, could have been avoided. If planners tell you they are short staffed,,,, they are lying. They just couldn't manage a PUIAB let alone time management !!

So, with the fresh application in I wait. Finally, with about a week to go, the planning officer decides to make a visit. Turns out they had a letter of complaint that I'd started the access track. Truth is, it was so wet I had repaired the entrance into the field and made up the old track which already exisited for about 50 mtrs into the field. Still, the officer had a good look around and then decided their farm consultant was required to make a call on the 'need'.

Interestingly, the first thing the planning officer said on the visit was 'do you intend to live here?'... I was a bit cross to tell the truth and thought it was an impertinent question so pointed out that this application was about farm barns and the like. I did try and stay as polite as possible and keep a cool approach. The officer made several other such remarks and to me, it became apparent that they couldn't give a dam what farm buildings I put up or constructed just so long as I didn't live on the land. This is such a ridiculous point of view in my mind as the one thing we need to be doing in this country is living and working on the land.

As the officer left he took a few photos and I was able to point out remnants of the old trackway.

The farm consultant turned up a few days later and was a very decent sort. It seemed he was amazed he'd been called to such a clear cut case and verbally okay'd everything I said and showed him.

So, a couple of days later,, on the 27th day of our notice, they consented that the application was in line with permitted development.... EXCEPT the access track!!! The planners decided at this stage that it should have been applied for on a different form. I did write to say I was not all that impressed with coming up with that little gem at such a late stage but it fell on deaf ears. So, duly, I filled out another application and sent another £70 and had to wait for another 28 days. of course, the weather being as it was, there wasn't a chance of getting any materials on site to start building work.

I heard nothing for 28 days!

I had written earlier on to confirm the 28th day and was sent a written response that it would be 8th April so, come 9th of April, I dropped them an email to say I was now beginning my access track as they hadn't responded in the alloted time. There first response, within 30 minutes of me emailing them my intentins, was to say that I had the wrong date and it was three days later,, i.e. the 11th. They said they took the dates from validation and not when they received the application. I have put a note under the Planning forum covering this in more detail but basically, they are wrong to do that and when I pointed that out to them in another (and now we are getting a bit more vehement,,,, no more Mr Nice Guy ) email that they were wrong and that I was going ahead with my entitled works.

Their response to this was that if I started work then I would be in breach of the PRIOR notice and would need planning permission and have to submit a Full application. Well, so far as I was concerned I hadn't broken any rule (and remember, they themselves had confirmed the 8th which I now pointed out in another email) and was going to start work that very afternoon. Their last response to that was they would continue to treat it as a Prior Notice if I didn't start work. Bull!!

I started work and on the 11th got a letter saying they had changed their mind again and that I was in breach of the prior notice and now I had to put in a full planning application. If I didin't then I would get an enforement notice. See you in court was my basic response.

I am now building my track. The planners have sent a letter saying they intend to carry out enforcement. It'll be an interesting few weeks and my guess is, without wishing to sound obnoxious, is that the planners will waste perfectly good tax payers money chasing a case they can't possibly win.

On a side note, I received their letter rejecting my prior notice for permitted development of an access track. Their reason,,,, 'Our officer made a site visit and following that, we have decided that full planning is required'.  Lol, no reason, no justification just a 'we have decided'.

It's worth also noting that the planning officer never advised to make a seperate application for the access track despite having been on site a week previous to their decisioon and despite the application for it having been in their presence for over 7 weeks. They never advised it even when I phoned several months before that it should have been on a seperate form and indeed, I was advised to put everything on the same form, but they won't ever 'recall' that one.

So now I'm up to date. The weather has dried the land enough that I can start to get materials onto site. I want to change the dimensions slightly on one of the barns,,, god, what little gems will that get from the planners

[surreydodger]

I've tried the brutal approach with planners this week and said there's no way on earth we will put in a planning application for our access track. And I won't!!

What has become clear this week is the planners, or now as it is, the enforcement officers, are saying because I started work on the track before before Prior Notice was determined, then the 'prior' bit becomes invalid and thus, one has to submit a retrospective full planning application. From what I can deduce there is some validity in this point from what I have seen regarding one or two other simialr cases. Not sure if there's a way around that?

In my case though, the work I had done before the Prior Notice was determined was at the access point to the public road. This part of the track was already made up be it in a poor state and as I have told the planners, in effect all I have done is repair/maintain an exisiting track for which notification isn't necessary. They won't acknowledge that for some reason.

I also requested all the photographs taken by the planning officer on her visit. I wanted to see what they were basing their case on. The smarmy sods sent three pics and I know she took many more. Still, it will be interesting if they suddenly discover more pics when things get juicy later on

As I think I mentioned, I gained permitted development for a traditional style barn building and I have now found a 200 year old barn which will suffice for one of the buildings,, I know I can hear some one saying 'that'll be a house soon'' but you'd be worng. I like trad things but I have never been attracted to living in a barn conversion. A two hundred year old half timbered house or the like is fine but my personal tastes don't include barns, so I'm not being cynical here in my works. The barn is fairly complete though we will have to make quite a lot of new pieces to replace rotten timbers. Reckon it could take at least five years to complete

Another bit of good news was I had a mail back from the Leicester Longwool society. I have been on the look out for this particular breed for a couple of months now and not having a lot of success. The email was very encouraging and there is the possibility a small flock may be available soon. Fingers crossed on that one.

[surreydodger]

Other diary author updates have prompted me that an update on mine is way over due

When I titled my diary 'The Long Haul', I didn't realise quite how right I was. By now we should have had the hearing by way of a Public Inquiry. Under the different types of grounds for an appeal, i.e. written, hearing and inquiry, my evidence suggested that the alledged breach of planning had not occured. Because I had duly served a 28 day prior notice during which time the LPA had not made a decision, the evidence was tantamount to it being too late for the LPA to take enforcement action. Thus the Inspectorate alluded to an appeal on ground (d) being taken out. That I did and normally under ground (d), an inquiry is held. However, the LPA made a big soong and dance about their costs of having to employ a QC and such costs did not merit such a case. The Inspectorate relented and changed the type of appeal from Inquiry to a Hearing.

This means the whole process has to start over again. The actual hearing won't be until early March!

Now I do have some concerns over the change from Inquiry to Hearing. Under the Inquiry process, I may directly cross examine witness' and whoever I may so call. This would be very useful to me as the planning officer involved in this case has said various things which I would wish to be presented to the Inspector. However, under a Hearing process, all I may do is put my evidence to the Inspector and he may then in turn, if he so desries, question and ask the LPA for their view. Clearly, this is not the same as me cross examining the witness.

Now I've spent some time studying the European Human Rights Act. Suprisingly, it is not as long winded an Act as you may first imagine and is generally written in pretty basic terms. Most of it can be skipped as it deals with how a court should be formed and how the countries within the EU should respect it. There is one piece though which I found very interesting.

If you wish to read the whole thing it is here http://www.hri.org/docs/ECHR50.html

Article 6 basically gives rights to a fair trial and hearing. Special note should be made of paragraph 2, everyone is innocent until proven guilty. This as we know flies right in the face of planning law but don't get to excited. Several cases have tried this law but somehow have failed to persuade the courts that this should apply to planning law. I don't mid giving it another go as I wonder if the previous cases mired themselves in extraneous facts and evidence that allowed the core principle to get clouded over. Also, the UK government are well aware that if Article 6, para 2 was succesful in court as an argument over the planners 'burden of proof is upon the applicant', the whole planning system would need massive revising (way overdue and quite rightly it should in my book) but due to the cost, I suspect words from above are handed down to judges to ensure this deosn't happen (a little subversive thought I knoow )

Back to Article 6. Under paragraph 3, it quite clearly states that everyone has minimum rights in a court. Items © and (d) are very interesting to me because it says -

© to defend himself in person or through legal assistance of his own choosing or, if he has not sufficient means to pay for legal assistance, to be given it free when the interests of justice so require;

(d) to examine or have examined witnesses against him and to obtain the attendance and examination of witnesses on his behalf under the same conditions as witnesses against him;


© is not a problem, it says what it means but (d) has a possible ambiguity. At first glance you might take it that I would have the right to directly cross examine any witness by either me in person or my appointed agent (as prescribed in © above). But it might be considered that the Inspector of the Hearing is capable of examining the witness' and putting to them my argument. Then again, the Inspector would not be a defender of my choosing, so it may well be that he can't cross examine on my behalf under the Human Rights Act.

It's a bit confusing but basically, by the Planning Inspectorate moving my appeal from an Inquiry (where I could cross examine) to a Hearing (where I can only put evidence to the Inspector) would seem to remoove my right to properly defend myself under the terms of the Human Rights Act.

It needs a bit more study on the subject before I decide whether to take oin this challenge or not. Right now I have requested some clarification on the breach of planning that the LPA alledges. That in itself will have a marked effect on my next move as the way it was worded does not make it precisely clear where the breach has happened (geographically). Once I have seen the LPA's answer, I may go to try and have the whole enforcement notice quashed on the basis of Article 8 of the Human Rights Act. This says there shall be no interference by a public body to the day to day living of others unless in the accordance with the law. If, as I suspect, the planners reply as I hope, then I 99% certain they have no evidence. In the event that the LPA do not put up evidence substantial enough to require a hearing, then I will go for getting the whole thing thrown out.

After that, I may actually be able to get to the idealism of farming !!!

[surreydodger]

How things can change!

Have had a meeting on site with enforcement officer and have agreed a solution. They are prepared to drop the action and have the track acknowledged as permissible. I have to carry out some works to which are not onerous and I'm more than pleased to comply with. So I now need to send in details of what I intend to do (as we have agreed) and set a date to when it will be done by. Providing the works are done within the time frame (I can have two or three months but intend to get it done asap) then they will in essence sign it off and we will both agree to withdraw gracefully from further enforcement actions.

Peace and brotherly love prevail,, along with a bit of hard-nosed game-manship

[surreydodger]

It has been an incredibly busy couple of months or more since the last Diary entry but that said, it has all been worth it, I think!

At the beginning of November we had two major headaches. One was that we'd sold our house. The house had permission to put on an extension which we had been working on in a very relaxed manner but once the buyer came along, they wanted it finished and ready to move into before Christmas. Builders were crammed into every available space so as to achieve this (which according to the buiilders would be impossible,,, said with the proverbial sucking in of cheeks and pessimistical nay saying) and with a couple of exterior jobs not finished in time, the house was ready to move into for Christams Day. Good stuff.

However, in the same time frame, we had to now find ourselves a mobile home for ourselves to put on the farm. I had rather wanted to not put the mobile on the land until we had sorted out the access track and everything had been effectively signed off. However, with house sales stuggling along, the main priority was to keep our buyer sweet so the thought of the planners seeing the mobile home as they were signing off the track and thus setting off another debate, had to be ignored. Trying to find a twin unit, i.e. 20ft wide, at 40ft or more long, was no easy task. I had seen one earlier on in the year but was on second chance with that and the original buyer, despite some hesitation, was still looking to buy it. Everything else was usually 32ft long or shorter.

Then the 'beast' reared its head above the horizon down in snowy Devon. I drove down to look at this 45ft by 20ft Brentmere and decided it would do the job. It wasn't quite the thing I wanted being ally walled and very little insulation (the walls are less than 2 inches thick !!) but it was reasonably priced and in the end a deal was struck to buy, deliver and site. The plan will be to reskin the whole lodge,, yes we have got all fancy now and refer to it as the 'lodge',, using 100mm of insualtion walling with an outer skin of waney edged timber, all of which sit outside where I now sit, ready to be fixed on.

So, the race was on to get the lodge delivered and sited before we had to move out of the house. We managed to do it a week before Christmas during the big freeze where temperatures were hitting minus, double figures.

On the Tuesday the two units arrived on their low-loaders and we managed to get them off loaded and positioned on this day. On the Wednesday, they were put into their final position and connected together. because we are up on the side of a hill this wasn't quite as easy as anticipated but as darkness drew in, the final nuts and bolts were secured.

On the Thursday we moved our furniture in and I spent most of the day working on the access track so we could at least get to the lodge in something less than a tractor. Oh yes, and then the planning officer appeared. I spied him walking up the access track and although he wasn't one I recognised, he had that air of officialdom about him. He said that the council had been made aware that someone had put a mobile home on the land. I told him straight out that, that would be me and that I was living in it. He then asked the next obvious thing which was what where my intentions and again I told him that as under the 1960 Caravan Act I would be living there whilst working on my permitted development of agricultural barns. He seemed almost ready for this and certainly had no qualms about the regulations. He politiely asked if he could take photos and I asked if he would prefer me smiling or straight-faced.

He took his pics and off he went and I haven't heard owt from him since,,,, not that I'll expect that idyll to last for long

So, the first night I actually stayed in the lodge was the Friday. I had most of the furniture in but services were a bit limited. We had got a diesel genny which had arrived on the Thursday plumbed in but the electrics hadn't been sorted in the lodge itself so we had a couple of sockets and one light working. With the unknown safety of the elctrics I decided to turn off the genny asap. I'd also managed to get the gas bottles hooked up but it took until late into the evening before we managed to get the one and only gas heater going and then the gas cooker.

The first night my wife opted to stay with friends and take the dogs with her. It was minus 7C outside and the gas fire was equatable to a matchstick in a cave. I spent the first night with two duvets over me, fully clothed including hat and gloves on the couch in front of the fire. Moving in bed in those situations is a deadly game as any such adjustment seems to instantly send a spear of the coldest steel shooting into one part or another of ones anatomy. Still, I survived till the next morning and got water from a barrell I'd previously filled and made a coffee.

Bliss,, the view was amazing out of the window and looking across my fields, the lodge seemed to heat up to at least 35C !!

The following night was equally cold and equally chilly inside but I managed to cook my first meal and sort out a few bits of furniture so the interior less resembled a second hand furniture auction house. The wife still chose to stay away at friends and I couldn't blame her.

Sunday and a big result. One of the builders I had had working for me on the house was free for a day so we spent the day installing my big woodburning stove and getting the flue in. It was all a little makeshift but by mid afternoon we had it fired up. Suddenly the lodge was transformed. The sotve was lit and was belching out heat like a star going super-nova.

Oh yes, and now the wife and dogs turn up to stay

We also managed to lay a soil pipe and dug a 10ft deep hole out in the field, put a cover over it and now celebrated that we could have a working loo,,, be it with a bucket of water adjacent to flush it with.

Over the next few days we got running water installed. This was not an uneventful moment. We'd spent a couple of days diggin the 300mtrs of trenching for the mains pipe and finally connected the pipe to the lodge around 6.30pm. It was then that we discovered that the water heater in the kitchen, an instant heater, gas powered, leaked like a watering can spray spout. It took a while but I managed to cut off the supply pipes and with no fittings to hand, had to bend the copper pipes over to seal the ends. Turning the water back on and I discover the shower unit must have frozen prior to delivery because the whole thing was shattered and again, water poured out everywhere be it fortunately down the shower tray and outside. Again, it was a case of uncover the pipes and seal them off. At close to midnight, all was done and I went in to check the bathroom. To my horror, the whole room was flooded. We'd been so busy with the other leaks, whcih we could hear and see, that the slient but biggest leak hadn't been noticed.

The bathroom floor was covered in about an inch of water. I found the leaks, the pipes had broken off the bottom of the basin taps, but it took forever to seal them off and it was gone 2am before I'd finaly managed to pull up the sodden carpets and mop up as much water as I could.

The following day, the plumber arrived and tidied up much of my bodge work and joy of joys, he got the hot water running so we could now have a shower.

I hate to have to admit this but in all the manic goings on of the previous weeks, the shower I had that evening was the first one in over two weeks ,,, pooheeey

So we are now installed. Most things are at an accpetable level though there are still a few jobs to do. There are some minor things like getting hot running water to the kitchen and installing the washing machine (the wife has rediscoved the delights of laundry's) and the more major tasks of doing the cladding, rebuilding the roof ( I want a much steeper pitch) and fitting the insualtion. I have also installed another portacabin and I'm curretly fitting this out with all my workshop machines and tools. The access trakc needs the work doing to comply with the councils conditions. This was supposed to be done by 31st Dec. but that was never a reality what with the weather we had. I'll get to doing that over the next few weeks and then get the planners to okay it,,, it'll give them a chance to nose about the place

Yesterday (Friday), was the first day where I woke up and had nothng on my 'MUST DO' list,,,,,, I thus more or less took the day off and did very little. Okay, I still had to get firewood and make sure the genny is topped up with diesel but overall, yesterday was the first real day of being able to breath comfortably.

I think we are getting there. We even spoke today of things to do on the farm like stock fencing and poultry housing.

I wonder when we will gather our first egg..... bets anyone

Oh, and I haven't had a ciggy since Boxing Day,, a wee fact I'm very proud of

[surreydodger]

Finally an entry nothing to do with planning

Tonight we have had our first lambs. First ewe, our smallest and last to be covered, produced a fine ram lamb. Both doing well. Then a second ewe popped out a very small ewe lamb, followed half an hour later by a slightly better ewe lamb. Then an hour later she started pacing around he pen, not letting the first two born suckle and low and behold, popped out a fair ram lamb.

So two down, two to go and four lambs to boot. A good night so far with another ewe looking possible but then she was due last Tuesday and has been threatening on and off all week (nothing definite).

One small but important bit of planning news, the LPA have withdrawn their enforcement action on the track and so we now have a legal roadway to our farm.

Apart from having a grand dose of man flu (you can't choose when to be ill) a very successful day I'd say

[surreydodger]

Yesterday was a momentous day,,, the mains electricity went live! I can't even begin to explain what it is like to just switch on a radio or boil a kettle at the touch of a button. Before, when we were reliant on the genny for electric, we would either have to use the wind up radio or put the kettle on the gas stove unless we had the genny already on. We would only have the genny on if there were a multitude of requirements as it is a 10KVa machine i.e. drinks fuel. Every week we would use around 150 litres of red diesel which equates to about £110 a week, a truly frightening cost when that has been going on for four months. So now we not only have the marvelous benefit of IOL in every room but a huge saving in expenses,, IOL? Instant on lighting of course )

Not that having mains electricity comes cheaply. We only had a fifty meter run from the nearest overhead pole but I wanted to have 3-phase electricity available for future requirements. This meant having a transformer mounted on the pole and the first quote for all of the install was just over £12,000,, yes twelve thousand !! By luck, I was talking to a nephew whose job entailed dealing with electricity supplies from time to time and he told me to say to the electricity supplier I wanted to have a quote based on 'contestable works'. I have no idea what this really means but I did it and voila, we had a quote of £6,500 + VAT (which we can reclaim). It's still a lot but obviously, having an extra £6,000 in the kitty is not to be sniffed at.

By way of contrast, I also had a quote for a single phase supply from an overhead pole some 200 meters away. This already had a transformer on it and the cost for that supply came in at £5,000. I didn't contest that cost but one imagines you might saved have a coupld of thousand or so on the previous basis. These costs do not include the digging of the trenches but being as I firstly own a small excavator and have spent 30 yrs or so driving such plant, I was able to all that work myself. Had I not, I would probably have to have added another three or four hundred piounds to the costs.

Whilst talking about services, here's one for those requiring a BT line. If no service already exists to your property, under a charter drawn up when BT was privatised, it was agreed that BT would pay the first part of any costs invloved of that connection. Currently that first part is up to £3,400 and will generally cover most installations of up to 500 mtrs from the nearest existing telegraph pole.

So for anyone reading through this diary, be very aware that the costs of installing services is not something to be treated lightly. The costs will nearly always be in to the thousands and can be into the tens of thousands if you are remote from exisitng supplies. Generators are expensive to run in comparison to mains electricity and even boreholes for water can set you back a pretty penny, be it that the cost of water thereafter is only what it costs you to pump it out. Also, the time frame for getting the supply company's to perform is not great; allow three/four months or so from initial enquiry to final connection.

Over the last fortnight our four ewes have all lambed and not having any experience beforehand of lambing, I have been relieved that none caused any major problems. The last set of twins were a terribly long and gangly pair and slow to get going. They both developed a bit of pneumonia and I have to admit to certain degree of nervousness of having to using a syringe to inject the necessary drugs nto them. It's thirty years or more since I carried out such jobs and then on calves and cows which are much more robust. Still, a resume in my head of the procedure meant that went better than I had worried about and both lambs are now belting around with all their neices and nephews even though they are up to a fortnight younger than the others.

Our lambing shed and paddock are coming along. The lambing shed was ninety percent complete before lambing started (by one week!) but now we are putting in the finishing touches such as doors on hinges as opposed to having to slide things across the openings. The electrics are almost done with both 12 volt and 240 volt supplies and the last thing will be getting a water supply tapped in as at the moment everything is bucketed in by my faithful sherpa, Ms SD

I finally found a post banger to fit my small excavator. I only have a 1.5ton excavator at the moment and though I'd seen post knockers for 3 ton excavators, there didn't appear to be a model for such a small machine. It did seem I would end up getting one for my full size tractor but then fortuitously, I saw a knocker advertised on Ebay. It's a PC10 model made by Protech, a UK firm who make a variety of machines right up to ones which can seem to bang a 300mm diameter post into solid granite with one hit!

Because I eventually want to put some fencing through some woodland where I eventually want to run some pigs, I didn't want to have a tractor mounted machine as this in turn would have meant to clear such a bif trackway to enable to the tractor to gain access. The mini digger will need far less room to work in. Not that this very small post knocker can compete with its larger relatives, it takes a bit of patience to bang in a large strainer post but it gets there in the end and does the job so I have no complaints.

We have one large final cost and job to do before getting stuck in, in earnest to building the barns. The mobile home is about to be set upon by the builders. The walls are loose their existing ally cladding and be replaced with 100mm of Celotex insulation and and outer skin of waney edged timber cladding. The roof and floor will receive similar insulation treatment though I haven't quite fathomed out yet what to surface the roof with. Then there is double glazzing to be fitted throughout and finally, a little bit of an indulgence but we are fitting a new kitchen and bathrooms.

I am leaving this work to the builders as firstly I have zero interest in such work but more importantly, it leaves me free to make a start on the farm buildings. I want to get the footings and base laid on one of them within the next couple of months as this will give me a large flat and hard work area to use in connection with building the old traditional barn I have. It will also give me a bit of development to show any visitng officialdom that works are progressing as well.

Well, what a delight it has been to sit here and write without the guilt complex of typing at a cost of 10p a word in fuel costs and even more dleightfully, no bally great gerring noise of the genny running!

Keep smiling

[surreydodger]

Building work has progressed well though the builders were delayed a couple of weeks in starting. The tin beast has now had all of its exterior walls rebuilt to include ample insulation and the wooden cladding looks brilliant, be it there's a couple of things we need to revisit and modify at a later day,, live'n'learn kind of things.

Our lambs have all developed well and we are proud to have had good comments from a fellow forumite (well experienced in sheep nmatters and whose opinions, knowledge we have highly valued) along with the vet, who we decided to call in and do a flock inspection along with help set up a plan going forward. It is always going to boost the ego a little when one receives welcome comments but more importantly, it gives us some comfort to know we must be getting something right.

We also welcomed the first of our Dorset Poll pedigree progeny onto the farm. Over the forthcoming years we aim to develop the blood line and produce a high quality flock producing offspring for breeding flocks. That's a way off yet but at least we have started.

One point of note has been Ms SD's bees. We have just endured the swarming season and now have five hives instead of the original two. We were interested to hear of a local beekeeper who took over four tons of honey from his hives. We think he is probably maintaining between 100-200 hives to get that amount of honey. It was when we sat down and looked at the feasible income that we gave each other a wry look.

Four tons equates to approx 9000lbs and as this sells at around £4.50 a jar, the gross income of £40,000 suddenly had us considering putting a little extra emphasis into the bees. Of course, that is gross income. the stuff still has to be collected and packaged which costs us only our time but jars have to be bought as do labels. Also, the £4.50 per jar price is the retail price, it is not therefore unreasonable to imagine only getting £3.00 a jar if selling into retailers.

Still, it would provide a healthy and worthwhile income if we did decide to expand that side of things.

Farm wise, things have slowed somewhat. I was welcomed with a phonecall to say someone had hundreds of tons of sandstone to get rid of. This is ideal as a blinding to lay on top of our access track which at the moment is a bit of a tooth jarring expedition each time we traverse it. The current track surface is rolled hardcore so blinding it with a layer of comapcted sand will at least allow the springs on my truck to have an extended period of life,,, let alone my teeth

So there we have it for now. Not a dynamic forward movement of progress but at least everything is going along smoothly.

Now watch some institutional operative come and put a spanner in

[surreydodger]

Flippin' eck!! Where does the time go. I am amazed to see my last write up was back in May. Oh well, as they say, time waits for no one and what with the proliferacy of fellow members diary entries to spur one into action (and of great literacy skills it has to be noted), here is the latest update to our own quest.

On the planning front it has remained quiet since submitting our Planning Contravention Notice (PCN) back in February. Now I notice I haven't put in anything here in my Diary relating to that as it was covered elsewhere in the forum so excuse a little resume of what happened back then.

We were hand delivered a PCN which requested the details of our positioning the mobile home on our land. Despite the planning officer having turned up and being told if why it had been sited (re engineering works, etc.) and having accepted that information, the planning dept. wanted this clarified in writing. I felt this action was excessive, after all, they know why I'm here and if at any time in the future they have forgotten, it wouldn't take a moment to re-establish the reasons I'm on site. After a bit of debate between me and the planners, I took some additional advice from a planning consultant and agreed to file a reply. I must stress that filling in PCN's is not to be taken lightly as I feel their principle use of this document is to trip you up into saying something they can later use against you. Having returned it in Fabruary, we have not heard a dicky bird from the planners since. Perhaps we filled in the form well enough not to give them any ammo as if we had, I'd bet my farm that they would have soon turned up.

Building wise, the access track is now surfaced from end to end, thx to my friend arriving with several hundred tons of sandstone blinding for free. The gateway entrance needs a bit of work as although we put it in newly last year, I had to change it to make the entrance wider and safer. This entailed some rather rushed work to which I will get straightened out shortly.

The mobile home is nearly finished being refurbished. All the major work is done and what remains to do is largely interior cosmetics. This has taken longer to achieve than I anticipated but then being building works, it always does . Things like carpet and curtains are absent as is any form of wall decoration excepting the kitchen and bathrooms, which have been tiled. We hope to get that mostly sorted out before Xmas but it is not a priority.

We have also been putting in extra water mains to various parts of the farm. We now have a mains fed water trough in every field and paddock so no more buckets and hosepipes. One less chore to have to do each day. I've also put water pipes in such a way that it won't be to much of a problem to feed other fields and paddocks with water as we progress. One can never be wholly certain how things will plan out but I think we have most angles covered as we create further enclosures.

The Dorset's are all looking in good condition ready to start lambing in the next week or two. The only consternation we have had is that as to whether to give them extra feed or not as is generally prescribed for due mothers. Because these ewes have been on good grass all summer, it's not like those in the winter who are not eating on such good pasture. We ended up deciding that as they looked tip-top that feeding them extra would only likely put them into an overweight stance and my own feeling was that I'd prefer them slightly underweight or perfect weight for lambing rather than over. They get a handful of ewe feed each day but this is more like giving well behaved kids a sweetie and has helped the bonding process for them and us

The lambing shed meanwhile is not ready for the ewes. Firstly, we have four ram lambs in the paddock which holds the lambing shed. We'd elected to leave the rams intact with testicles and one of them we'd even left the tail undocked. Leaving testicles on was an error as it has made for several complications in keeping them seperate from the ewes. We won't be doing that again unless it is one of the Dorset lambs which could be sold as a breeding ram. Leaving the tail on however seems fine. I have noted no additional problems re flystrike or mucky-bums for having the tail on over those with it docked. However, this experiment is about to be curtailed as these four are off to the slaughterhouse next week. It will be our first trip and I admit, not one I am wholly looking forward to..... yes, I am a soft southern woose at times.

Another problem with the lambing shed is that it is currently holding 150 or so Black Rock, week old chicks. These were bought on the spur of the moment when a chap I had last talked to over a year ago, rang up out of the blue to say he had a cancelled order for 300 day old chicks and would we be interested in them?

There is no way we could take on that amount of layers and have the necessary facilities to cope with egg production so our first reaction was to dismiss the idea entirely. But having given it a few hours thought, we did see how we could take them from chicks to point of lay and then sell them on then. So that is what we decided although only taking half the chicks offered. A hover brooder was quickly put together and an area sectioned off in the lambing shed using haybales. A couple of heat lamps used for the ewes and lambs were incoporated and, hey presto, we're in business.

The chicks have been in there for over a week now and we are having a purpose built brooder shed constructed which should be finished this weekend. We'll transfer the chicks to that shed as soon as it's ready. My only concern has been the mortality rate. We are at 10% at just over the first week and although most were in the first few days as one may expect, I remain a bit worried that it may continue to grow. The birds come from a reputable breeder so I think it is that we have either had a bad luck of the draw problem or we are doing something wrong. My main suspicion is I had it too warm as once I got a thermometer, some parts of the brooder were nigh on 40C. They could walk out from under the brooder altogether if they were too hot but I suspect too much heat may have caused some fatalities. Lesson learnt I think and make sure one has a thermometer from the outset in the future.

So there we are for now. Lambs coming, chicks growing, building work progressing and the F2F Fest to look forward to greatly, in October. Life is good and hopefully will remain that way for a while yet.

[surreydodger]

A year on and good progress ,, but still so much to do.

We have now nearly finished building 9 hen houses which each can hold 120 laying hens. We purchased a couple of houses from a reputable maker but felt that they really weren't capable of with standing our teraain on the side of a hill. With that in mind we strengthened the bought in ones and designed and built our own.

Rather than pack out the houses we only run up to a hundred hens per house. Two are currenlty in lay containing 160 hens so we get a daily lay of approx 140-150 eggs at the moment. We then have a further 350 hens around 14 weeks old which should begin laying in about 6 weeks time. Two weeks ago we took delivery of another 300 day olds and they are doing nicely now though it is always a painful first week with having to deal with deads. Generally we expect around 5% losses over the first few weeks although we got hit hard with one batch when we had an outbreak of coccidosis and lost nearer 15%

We will have one more batch of 200 chicks in the coming weeks so that by next March we should have a full complement of 900 laying birds. That reminds me,,, must get on with making the nesting boxes

On top of that we have also been trying to get our packing station sorted out. This, once credited, willl allow us to sell directly into retail outlets. I finally found an egg grading machine suitable for our purposes but it is currently stripped down whilst I refurb it.

The sheep are all behaing themselves and we took our first bunch of rams to market recently. Unfortunately it wasn't a good day for Dorset's and although breeds such as Texels and Charolias did well, none of the Dorset's (ours or others) made reserve prices.

My planning business has kept me more than busy on that side of things. I do not want this to ever be a main business for me and I am fortunate to be able to be quite picky who I choose to represent. This year has been good in that I have maintained a 100% success rate with one case ongoing from last Nov (which will make for a great article one day!). If there is something to be said for using some planning help, it is that LPA's are still constantly mis-advising people about what they can't do.

So, there we have it,, it's been hectic and will remain so and the above witterings, as most involved in such livelyhoods will know, barely touches on all the comings and goings. It saves for having a boring life

[surreydodger]

A year on and good progress ,, but still so much to do.

We have now nearly finished building 9 hen houses which each can hold 120 laying hens. We purchased a couple of houses from a reputable maker but felt that they really weren't capable of with standing our teraain on the side of a hill. With that in mind we strengthened the bought in ones and designed and built our own.

Rather than pack out the houses we only run up to a hundred hens per house. Two are currenlty in lay containing 160 hens so we get a daily lay of approx 140-150 eggs at the moment. We then have a further 350 hens around 14 weeks old which should begin laying in about 6 weeks time. Two weeks ago we took delivery of another 300 day olds and they are doing nicely now though it is always a painful first week with having to deal with deads. Generally we expect around 5% losses over the first few weeks although we got hit hard with one batch when we had an outbreak of coccidosis and lost nearer 15% http://www.fieldtofa...MO_DIR#/sad.png

We will have one more batch of 200 chicks in the coming weeks so that by next March we should have a full complement of 900 laying birds. That reminds me,,, must get on with making the nesting boxes http://www.fieldtofa..._DIR#/smile.png

On top of that we have also been trying to get our packing station sorted out. This, once credited, willl allow us to sell directly into retail outlets. I finally found an egg grading machine suitable for our purposes but it is currently stripped down whilst I refurb it.

The sheep are all behaing themselves and we took our first bunch of rams to market recently. Unfortunately it wasn't a good day for Dorset's and although breeds such as Texels and Charolias did well, none of the Dorset's (ours or others) made reserve prices.

My planning business has kept me more than busy on that side of things. I do not want this to ever be a main business for me and I am fortunate to be able to be quite picky who I choose to represent. This year has been good in that I have maintained a 100% success rate with one case ongoing from last Nov (which will make for a great article one day!). If there is something to be said for using some planning help, it is that LPA's are still constantly mis-advising people about what they can't do.

So, there we have it,, it's been hectic and will remain so and the above witterings, as most involved in such livelyhoods will know, barely touches on all the comings and goings. It saves for having a boring life http://www.fieldtofa..._DIR#/smile.png

[surreydodger]

A year on and good progress ,, but still so much to do.

We have now nearly finished building 9 hen houses which each can hold 120 laying hens. We purchased a couple of houses from a reputable maker but felt that they really weren't capable of with standing our teraain on the side of a hill. With that in mind we strengthened the bought in ones and designed and built our own.

Rather than pack out the houses we only run up to a hundred hens per house. Two are currenlty in lay containing 160 hens so we get a daily lay of approx 140-150 eggs at the moment. We then have a further 350 hens around 14 weeks old which should begin laying in about 6 weeks time. Two weeks ago we took delivery of another 300 day olds and they are doing nicely now though it is always a painful first week with having to deal with deads. Generally we expect around 5% losses over the first few weeks although we got hit hard with one batch when we had an outbreak of coccidosis and lost nearer 15% http://www.fieldtofa...MO_DIR#/sad.png

We will have one more batch of 200 chicks in the coming weeks so that by next March we should have a full complement of 900 laying birds. That reminds me,,, must get on with making the nesting boxes http://www.fieldtofa..._DIR#/smile.png

On top of that we have also been trying to get our packing station sorted out. This, once credited, willl allow us to sell directly into retail outlets. I finally found an egg grading machine suitable for our purposes but it is currently stripped down whilst I refurb it.

The sheep are all behaing themselves and we took our first bunch of rams to market recently. Unfortunately it wasn't a good day for Dorset's and although breeds such as Texels and Charolias did well, none of the Dorset's (ours or others) made reserve prices.

My planning business has kept me more than busy on that side of things. I do not want this to ever be a main business for me and I am fortunate to be able to be quite picky who I choose to represent. This year has been good in that I have maintained a 100% success rate with one case ongoing from last Nov (which will make for a great article one day!). If there is something to be said for using some planning help, it is that LPA's are still constantly mis-advising people about what they can't do.

So, there we have it,, it's been hectic and will remain so and the above witterings, as most involved in such livelyhoods will know, barely touches on all the comings and goings. It saves for having a boring life http://www.fieldtofa..._DIR#/smile.png

[surreydodger]

I am still alive. Miracle upon miracle that I remembered login info. Still farming but lost battle for house,,, for now Will attempt login from PC rather than phone soon, to give a more detailed up date.

[surreydodger]

I am still alive. Miracle upon miracle that I remembered login info. Still farming but lost battle for house,,, for now Will attempt login from PC rather than phone soon, to give a more detailed up date.

[surreydodger]

I am still alive. Miracle upon miracle that I remembered login info. Still farming but lost battle for house,,, for now Will attempt login from PC rather than phone soon, to give a more detailed up date.

[surreydodger]

I am still alive. Miracle upon miracle that I remembered login info. Still farming but lost battle for house,,, for now Will attempt login from PC rather than phone soon, to give a more detailed up date.

[surreydodger]

I am still alive. Miracle upon miracle that I remembered login info. Still farming but lost battle for house,,, for now Will attempt login from PC rather than phone soon, to give a more detailed up date.

[surreydodger]

I am still alive. Miracle upon miracle that I remembered login info. Still farming but lost battle for house,,, for now Will attempt login from PC rather than phone soon, to give a more detailed up date.

[surreydodger]

I am still alive. Miracle upon miracle that I remembered login info. Still farming but lost battle for house,,, for now Will attempt login from PC rather than phone soon, to give a more detailed up date.