Farm Planning Consultants in Lancashire

Lancashire land, from the Fylde to the fells

Lancashire is grass country. More than 80% of its farmland is grassland, so dairy herds, suckler cows and hill sheep shape the view from the Forest of Bowland to the Lune Valley. West Lancashire is the exception, where the rich soils around Ormskirk grow almost all of the county's field vegetables. Whether you need a bigger cubicle shed, more slurry storage, a house for the next generation or a fresh purpose for an old stone barn, that plan can become an approval with a farm planning consultant in Lancashire on your side.

What slows Lancashire farmers down

The Forest of Bowland National Landscape covers a large share of the uplands, Arnside and Silverdale National Landscape reaches into the north of the county, and since 2016 a corner of Lancashire around Leck Fell has sat inside the Yorkshire Dales National Park. Green Belt covers around a quarter of the land, with the biggest areas in West Lancashire, Chorley and South Ribble. The Ribble, the Lune and the Wyre bring flood risk to the valleys and the coastal plain. On top of that, 15 councils are due to be replaced by 4 new unitary authorities in April 2028, so local plans and policies are on the move.

You send in the forms and the questions begin. Another survey, another drawing, another month gone, often over a point that has nothing to do with how your farm runs. It wears you down and puts the whole project in doubt. Keeping a family farm going in Lancashire should not mean fighting for permission to do it.

Planning help from people who know farming

Waiting on a council while your stock, your staff and your bank wait on you is hard, and farmers tell us so every week. We are rural planning specialists, and every client we take on farms or owns land. Our daily work is agricultural permitted development, Class Q, Class R and full planning. We understand how to make the case for a farm building inside a National Landscape, on Green Belt land or close to a floodplain. Of every 20 applications we make, 19 are approved, a 95% success rate.

3 steps to a Lancashire consent

1. Call 01206 481981. Tell us about your herd, your land and the building or home you have in mind.
2. We build the strategy. We test your site against the Green Belt, National Landscape, flood and heritage rules, then choose the route most likely to succeed.
3. We manage the council. We draw up and submit the application, answer every query and keep pressing until you have a decision.

Lancashire councils and landscapes we cover

• Lancaster City Council
• Wyre Council
• Fylde Council
• Preston City Council
• Ribble Valley Borough Council
• Pendle Borough Council
• Burnley Borough Council
• Hyndburn Borough Council
• Rossendale Borough Council
• Chorley Council
• South Ribble Borough Council
• West Lancashire Borough Council
• Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council
• Blackpool Council
• Forest of Bowland National Landscape
• Arnside and Silverdale National Landscape
• The Lancashire part of the Yorkshire Dales National Park
• The Fylde plain and Over Wyre
• The West Lancashire plain

We support farms around Lancaster, Carnforth, Garstang, Kirkham, Poulton, Clitheroe, Longridge, Chipping, Whalley, Colne, Ormskirk, Rufford, Chorley and Leyland. The Royal Lancashire Agricultural Show at Salesbury Hall near Ribchester brings the county's farmers together each July, and the Garstang, Great Eccleston and Chipping shows keep the summer busy. Farming over the boundary? See our pages for Cumbria, Yorkshire, Cheshire and the North West.

Lancashire produce with a name

Lancashire land has built some famous names. The Kirkham family has made Mrs Kirkham's Lancashire cheese at Goosnargh for 3 generations. Dewlay has made cheese on the edge of Garstang since George Kenyon set up his dairy in 1957. Booths, the northern grocer, began as a single shop in Blackpool in 1847 and now runs its warehouse and distribution from Longridge. Good businesses grow from this ground, and yours can too.

Why a dedicated farm planner

Lancashire landowners often turn to rural firms such as Ingham & Yorke in Clitheroe, Armitstead Barnett in Garstang and Richard Turner & Son at Bentham for land, valuation and sales work. Farm planning is the only work Foxes Rural does, so your application has a specialist on it from your first phone call until the council decides.

The price of a wrong turn

Put a livestock shed in the wrong place on Green Belt land or inside the Forest of Bowland and a refusal may follow, and it stays on the record for every application after it. Build without the right consent and an enforcement notice can force you to take it down. Meanwhile building costs rise, and the switch to new councils in 2028 adds another layer of uncertainty.

Your Lancashire farm, approved

Imagine the new cubicle shed full by winter, the old stone barn converted into a home or a rented workshop, and a house on the farm so your son or daughter can take on the herd. Call Foxes Rural on 01206 481981 and let's make a start.