We reconvened most of the team who worked together on the Reviving County Farms project (CPRE and the New Economics Foundation) to work on this follow-up project to create a collaborative vision for the future of council farmland in England:
We conducted further research into the issues raised in our previous Reviving County Farms report, and through our literature review which explored emerging models of public land management and ownership. We held a series of workshops of different stakeholder groups, such as new or prospective entrants, tenant farmers, and surveyors/local authority staff to discuss what they would like to council farmland to look like and be used for in 2040, and what were the barriers and opportunities to getting there.
CPRE, NEF and Shared Assets, supported by an Expert Advisory Panel, then brought all these ideas together in a cohesive vision which reimagined council farmland as delivering a range of social and environmental goods for local authorities, new entrants and the wider local community. The vision was disseminated and publicised widely through a communications strategy, including events, with the aim of shifting local and national policy around council farmland.
This project was jointly funded by Farming the Future and the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation.