Farm Planning Consultants in Essex

Our home county, your farm

Essex is one of the most productive arable counties in the country, with wheat, barley and oilseed rape on its heavy clays, fruit around Tiptree, and livestock, horticulture and equestrian businesses across the county. You might need a new grain store, a general purpose shed, a home for the next generation or a new use for an old timber framed barn. A farm planning consultant in Essex can help you win approval and get on with farming.

Foxes Rural is based at Eight Ash Green near Colchester, and we farm here too. We know the Essex councils, the officers and the local plans because we deal with them every week.

Where Essex applications get stuck

Much of south and west Essex sits in the Metropolitan Green Belt, where councils start from a presumption against new building. The Dedham Vale National Landscape on the Suffolk border carries strong landscape protection, and the coast and estuaries of the Stour, Colne, Blackwater and Crouch are protected habitats, so new homes near them usually need a mitigation payment. Many Essex barns are listed timber framed buildings with their own heritage tests, and coastal and river valley land brings flood risk. Farmers face long delays and refusals on technical points that pay little attention to how a farm business works.

Farm planning, nothing else

We know how frustrating it is to watch a season come and go while an application sits in a queue. Foxes Rural works only for farmers and landowners. We know agricultural permitted development, Class Q, Class R and full planning, and we know how to deal with Green Belt, landscape, heritage and habitat issues in Essex. Our approval rate is 95%.

The 3 step route to approval

1. Ring us on 01206 481981. Tell us about the farm and your plans.
2. We build the case. We look at the technical and policy issues up front and choose the right route.
3. We manage the process. We submit, negotiate and answer every query until there is a decision.

Essex areas we cover

• Colchester
• Braintree
• Uttlesford
• Tendring
• Chelmsford
• Maldon
• Rochford
• Epping Forest
• Brentwood
• Basildon
• The Dedham Vale National Landscape

We help farms near Colchester, Chelmsford, Braintree, Saffron Walden, Great Dunmow, Thaxted, Halstead, Coggeshall, Witham, Maldon, Manningtree, Ongar and Billericay. For neighbouring counties, see Suffolk, Norfolk and our page on farm planning in East Anglia.

Essex farming names

Essex farming has deep roots. Wilkin and Sons has grown fruit around Tiptree since the 1880s, and the Petre family has farmed around Ingatestone for centuries. Each needed buildings and planning consent to grow. Your farm deserves the same opportunity.

A planning specialist for your farm

Essex landowners often use firms such as Strutt and Parker, Savills, Bidwells, Cheffins, Whirledge and Nott, Ceres Property and Brooks Leney. At Foxes Rural, farm planning is our only business, so an Essex case always has our full attention.

What inaction costs

A refused building, or one put up without the right consent, can mean enforcement, lost income and wasted investment. Delay simply pushes your plans back another season.

The Essex farm you want

Picture a new store working hard, an old barn converted and earning, and a business set for the next generation. See which planning route fits your farm, or call Foxes Rural on 01206 481981 to get started.