Welsh council land sell-off limits farmer opportunities

Wales’ county farms estate looks set to continue its long-term steady decline, with the impact of sales of sizeable blocks being exacerbated by no new land being bought in its place.

The latest Annual Report on Local Authority Smallholdings in Wales covers 1 April 2020 to 31 March 2021 and was produced by the Welsh government based on statistical information provided by the country’s 22 unitary authorities.

As of 31 March 2021, the total area of land held by local authorities in Wales for smallholding purposes was just over 38,491 acres, of which about 32,032 acres were let as smallholdings with a house and/or buildings.

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In comparison, the previous report showed land held by local authorities was just over 38,776 acres, of which about 32,371 acres were let as smallholdings.

The data from the Welsh Agricultural Survey for June 2021 gave the total area of farms and common land as about 4.85m acres, meaning the smallholdings account for about 1% of the land.

Land ownership

The authorities recorded as owning the most land were Powys (10,448 acres), Isle of Anglesey (5,793 acres), Pembrokeshire (5,118 acres), Carmarthenshire (3,358 acres) and Gwynedd (2,995 acres) – the same top five as the previous year.

Those with the least land were Cardiff (44 acres), Merthyr Tydfil (79 acres), Bridgend (99 acres), Vale of Glamorgan (120 acres) and Torfaen (140 acres) – similar to the preceding report.

Rhondda Cynon Taff reported owning one acre despite reporting owning no land for the two previous years.

For the second consecutive year, Ceredigion was included in the report with zero acres, a significant drop from 2019 when it reportedly owned about 700 acres.

According to the supplied data, no authorities acquired land during these 12 months, matching the previous period.

Meanwhile, five authorities disposed of a total of 278 acres for £2.8m:

• Denbighshire 129 acres, £995,000
• Flintshire 10 acres, £94,716
• Monmouthshire 48 acres, no price recorded
• Powys 19 acres, £595,000
• Torfaen 73 acres, £1.1m.

The other 17 authorities were recorded as having no activities during the year.

In 2020, eight councils (Caerphilly, Carmarthenshire, Conwy, Denbighshire, Flintshire, Monmouthshire, Pembrokeshire and Powys) disposed of 507 acres for £7.6m.

For 2021, the revenue account of smallholdings authorities in Wales showed a total income of just over £4.18m against a total expenditure of £1.43m, giving an operational surplus of just above £2.75m.

This was down slightly on the 2020 total income of £4.4m and operational surplus a little above £3m.