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Council sell-off provokes Easter uprising down on the farm[/FONT][FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]
John Vidal, environment editor
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Saturday April 15, 2006
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Guardian[/FONT]
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It was the peaceful Easter uprising. Ten people, three cows, two pigs, several sheep and a carthorse yesterday quietly walked into and then occupied an empty 80-acre farm in Somerset in protest at the way the local council was selling off its publicly owned land to make what they called “a quick buck”.[/FONT][FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]
Within hours of the occupation, Balham Hill farm on the edge of the village of Chiselborough, near Yeovil, was diversifying. First the old farm shop was scrubbed down and started selling milk, meat and vegetables, and then as more animals arrived, they were put out to graze.[/FONT]
[FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]“Here is this wonderful small county farm, owned by the people of Somerset, about to be broken up and floggged off for pony paddocks. The house will probably go as a second home and the land will make £500,000,” said one local who objected to the land being sold to people with no interest in faming and the village becoming more suburbanised.[/FONT]
[FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]Somerset has already sold five of its small farms, earning £3.6m, and Balham Hill is due for auction next month. It is to be offered in small lots, while the buildings will be sold on for redevelopment.[/FONT]
[FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]The intention of the occupation, said Simon Fairlie, a Somerset smallholder and land campaigner, is to show that farms of this size are financially viable, and are important steps on the ladder to farming for people without access to large amounts of capital. “They are also important to communities because they can provide shops and local produce,” he said.[/FONT]
[FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]“This is a good farm. It’s been a great success for the the couple who were here before and now the council wants to sell it off to make a quick buck.”[/FONT]
[FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]The people of Chiselborough were yesterday supportive of the invasion. Jim McCartney, chairman of the parish council, who sits on the action group to save the farm, said he had no idea the land would be invaded. “We cannot condone the squatting of the farm, but it shows the strength of feeling about Somerset’s plans. This was a model farm. It had a good farm shop, but the council wants to sell off the family silver. They intend to sell 43 farms like this.”[/FONT]
[FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]Cathy Bakewell, Liberal Democrat leader of the county council, said: “It’s most regrettable these people have broken the law. We are not selling off all our public land. We are retaining some in the Quantocks and at Donyatt.” She added: “The first million from the sale of these farms goes to a rural regeneration fund to help small busineses to diversify.”[/FONT]
[FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006[/FONT]
