Ashbourne farm walk – a thank you
A big thank you to Jess and Paul White and the wider White family for hosting a very popular farm walk on 5 August. I don’t think I have seen as many young children, including babies, at a farm. It wasn’t just interesting to see the farm, but also what succession plans they have already implemented and their plans for taking the dairy farm forward.
SSSI Guide for Landowners and farmers
Natural England has produced a new guide for landowners and farmers. This attempts to set out simply how SSSI’s are designated, monitoring of, plus when and how to seek permission for activities (farming or otherwise) that may need consent.
There are some paper copies at the NFU Bakewell Market kiosk or online.
When do boreholes require an abstraction licence?
Abstraction of water by any means such as a borehole, tapping a spring, from a river, canal, lake, or any abstraction of water greater than 20 cubic metres from the environment is likely to require a licence.
Abstractions of 20,000 litres (20 cubic metres) per day or less are exempt, provided the abstraction is part of a single operation – if you abstract from the same source at multiple points, the exemption only applies if the combined total of all abstractions is 20 cubic metres or less a day.
As a guide it is said a farm with a 120-cow dairy herd will use around 20 cubic metres a day. With abstraction of water coming under closer scrutiny, the EA will be looking for unlicenced boreholes.
Further details are available online on GOV.UK and the NFU website.
Health and safety event
We are planning one, in the southern half of the county, on Wednesday, 28 October, late morning. Look out for further details.
Top tip: Look on NFU Online for health and safety guidance and especially for rules on age and licence requirements for younger people driving agricultural machinery on the roads.