6 replies to this topic

[CluckCluck]

Hi, I'm new to the forum, and have already found a wealth of useful information between here and the F2F book. After about four years of looking, we think we may have found a suitable place to buy and I'm after a little help to make sure we are on the right lines.

Functional need: are chickens a viable option for the functional need test, if we are breeding, buying and selling them as 'garden hens' - ie selling live birds and hatching eggs rather than the more traditional route of free range eggs or meat birds.

Financial test: for planning to be granted for a house I understand we need to make as much income as we can from the business, and we have many viable revenue streams open to us, however not all of them are agricultural activities. Is there a rule about % income from agriculture for planning or are the functional and financial tests quite separate?

Thank you in advance

[shepie]

Hi I think you will need a lot of chickens to achieve planning for a house , you need 2150 man hours / year and a chicken Is about 0.1 hrs / year
with 15% added for estate maintenance and another 7% for office work etc you could in theory be ok with 1650 man hrs
Shepie

[CluckCluck]

Thanks Shepie, those figures are very helpful. We will also have about 18000 sq ft of poly tunnels, some with automatic irrigation and heating so we are hoping that using some of this space for horticulture plus the aforementioned chickens will be sufficient. Is there somewhere public that we can access established man hours for various animals and activities?

[shepie]

They seem to take them from the john nix books , despite what is said sometimes on here they will not amend that for small farmers in my experience ?

[Cornish Gems]

We seem to remember having read a case somewhere where the fact that the poly tunnels had automatic irrigation and/or heating meant that someone had to be on hand all the time in case the power failed. 

[shepie]

Yes CG it's the same as spuds if you put up a barn and put 1000 tonnes in there you can't build a house , but if you make it a cold store you can have a house
Surprised they don't link it to a mobile signal and tell you to live in the village !!

[CluckCluck]

Thanks, and that's an interesting point about the automatic equipment.