Farm Planning Consultants in Lincolnshire

Big fields, big ambitions: getting Lincolnshire farm buildings approved

Lincolnshire grows a huge share of the food on British plates. Wheat and sugar beet on the heights, potatoes and brassicas on the silt, poultry sheds and vegetable packhouses in between. When your operation grows, your buildings have to keep pace. A bigger grain store, a modern potato store, a calf shed or a redundant brick barn turned into a home or a let unit. What you need is a farm planning consultant in Lincolnshire who gets that scale and can carry your plan through to an approval.

Flood zones, solar schemes and paperwork that never stops

Much of the county is low and flat, drained by the Witham, the Welland, the Trent and a network of drains that keep the Fens farmable. That puts large areas in flood zones, and every application there needs a flood risk case. In the north east, the chalk of the Lincolnshire Wolds National Landscape brings landscape tests on top. Large solar farms and a proposed reservoir near Sleaford are reshaping the countryside around you, and the rules on what farmers can build keep shifting while the paperwork keeps growing.

You end up chasing reports, answering questions that arrive late and waiting on decisions while the season moves on. It is draining, and it is not right. No Lincolnshire family that has grown crops on its land for decades should need to battle for a shed to keep them in.

A specialist who already knows the ground

We know what it is like to wait on a decision you cannot control. At Foxes Rural our clients are farmers and landowners, nobody else. Prior approvals for agricultural buildings under Part 6, barn to home schemes under Class Q, Class R changes to commercial use and full applications fill our working week. We understand flood risk on the Fens, landscape tests in the Wolds and the pressure large infrastructure puts on farmland. 95% of the applications we handle are approved.

Moving your Lincolnshire project forward

1. Call 01206 481981. Describe the shed, store or barn project you have in mind and send a handful of site photos.
2. We build the strategy. You get a written route for your holding, prior approval, Class Q or a full application, plus the flood and landscape reports that route will demand.
3. We manage the council. Drawings, forms and supporting statements go in under our name, and we field each officer query until the decision notice lands.

Where we help farmers in Lincolnshire

• Boston
• East Lindsey
• City of Lincoln
• North Kesteven
• South Holland
• South Kesteven
• West Lindsey
• North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire
• The Lincolnshire Wolds National Landscape
• The Fens and the silt land around the Wash

We work with farms around Louth, Horncastle, Spilsby, Alford, Caistor, Sleaford, Spalding, Holbeach, Boston, Stamford, Gainsborough and Woodhall Spa. Each year the county comes together at the Lincolnshire Show on the showground just north of Lincoln, and we are glad to help the farms that make it happen.

Lincolnshire land at its best

Look at what this county already produces. Dyson Farming runs its estate from Nocton and grows strawberries under glass at Carrington near Boston, warmed by its own anaerobic digester. Lincolnshire Poacher cheese is made on a farm near Alford, and Branston packs potatoes just outside Lincoln. None of that happens without well placed buildings and the consents behind them. Your holding should have that same opportunity.

A planning specialist, not a general agent

For sales, lettings, valuations and estate work, Lincolnshire landowners know Savills, Brown&Co, Strutt & Parker, Robert Bell & Company and Masons well. Foxes Rural only does farm planning. Your scheme is never squeezed in between a land sale and a rent review, and it has our attention from first call to decision.

The price of a wrong turn

Put a shed in the wrong place, miss the flood evidence or build first and ask later, and you could be refused or served with enforcement. A brick barn left empty loses value every winter. A store that arrives a season late means another harvest squeezed into space that does not work.

Your Lincolnshire farm, a year from now

Picture the new store full after harvest, the brick barn earning rent or housing your son or daughter, and a business set up for decades. Call Foxes Rural on 01206 481981 to talk through your Lincolnshire plans.