Time to stop loss of farm land – La Societe
LA SOCIETE Guernesiaise is calling for a halt to all conversions of agricultural land to gardens and for less intensive management practices following what it claims as the loss of almost 80% of species-rich grasslands over the past 20 years.
The National Trust of Guernsey is also concerned about the spread of urban development in rural agricultural areas.
While La Societe has its own figures over the large loss of grassland, often due to intensive management, it emerged at a recent States’ meeting that more than 300 vergees of agricultural land – the size of about 75 football pitches – had been converted into gardens in Guernsey in the five-year period up to 2021.
Some of that land was classed as ‘agricultural priority area’, considered ideal for dairy farming.
Both groups said they appreciated recent changes from the planning department that meant householders wanting to extend the domestic curtilage of their homes have to include biodiversity enhancement information showing the environmental benefits of the development in their planning application.
However, they remain concerned.
‘We are yet to see any applications determined under the new criteria, which relate to improvements in biodiversity and sustainability, but we are hopeful it will put the brakes on a process that has seen a clear departure from the intention of the original policy,’ said National Trust of Guernsey lands manager Mike Brown.
He said that this was seen as a way for owners of isolated, non-viable, low-grade ex-horticultural land with limited access and no prospect of re-use, to ‘tidy up’ their property for the benefit of the island with little impact on the stock of agricultural land available for future use.
‘The National Trust of Guernsey would encourage all owners and tenants of domestic gardens to ensure that their land supports and enhances biodiversity and the environment as far as possible as a matter of course,’ said Mr Brown.
The group would rather the States encouraged sustainable enterprise that makes economic activity in rural industries more viable. This would establish value in agricultural land relative to its original use, as opposed to watching viable land becoming domestic gardens.
‘This may open routes to other forms of development that would change irreversibly the nature of the land’.
