Farm estates
We own and manage properties and land across Central Bedfordshire. The management of these assets plays an important role in delivering services and our vision and key priorities.
The aim of the estate is:
To promote the best use of the council’s assets for service delivery, deliver an optimum return from our commercial and agricultural investments, and facilitate regeneration and development
Our Corporate Landlord Service is responsible for the strategic and operational management of the council’s Estate (excluding Highways and Housing).
Property is expensive to procure, run and maintain, especially when budgets are under ever increasing pressure. As a result, assets need to be carefully managed to ensure they provide best value in terms of use, maintenance, and financial return, whilst still ensuring quality in service delivery.
Our Asset Management Strategy provides a framework for how the estate is managed. There are three types of assets within the Estate: Commercial, Corporate and Farm. The details of how each type of asset are managed is outlined in the Commercial Estates Plan, Accommodation Plan and the Farm Estate Plan.
Our farm estate extends to approximately 2,200 hectares (5,400 acres), mainly clustered around settlements.
The estate is a mixture of primarily arable as well as pastoral and mixed farming, and includes some non-agricultural tenancies such as fishing, grazing, and shooting licences and access and garden agreements as well as additional land areas outside of the area given above which are managed as nature reserves.
Tenancies range in size from smaller than a football pitch to the equivalent of around 320 football pitches, but the majority are between 12 hectares (29 acres) and 100 hectares (247 acres).
The estimated value of the farms estate is approximately £62m. The annual rental income from the estate is approximately £700,000.
Over the last 5 years surplus land and buildings have been sold, generating capital receipts of more than £50m.
To ensure the remaining estate remains viable we are seeking to acquire new farm land to replenish what has been lost.