Rural Challenge 2015 - our work

Rural coalition

The Rural Challenge 2015 was launched on 3 December. This highlights the progress that has been made on key housing, economic and health concerns since the coalition was formed in 2010.

However, the document does not reflect the Manifesto aims of the NFU or indeed other coalition partners, instead it seeks to promote cross cutting themes about the rural economy more generally in the face of increasingly urban focused policies.

Broadband and mobile phone

We have concerns about mobile phone and broadband coverage. 95% of the country should have superfast broadband by 2017 and 98% mobile phone by2015; this still leaves parts of the country with no orinadequatecoverage.

The NFU has responded to a consultation on how to tackle partial not-spots, where mobile phone coverage does not exist, or is only available for certain networks, emphasising the problems this creates for the farming industry.

The NFU will give evidence to an EFRA Sub Committee on rural broadband and digital services on 10 December 2014.

Members can check what coverage they should receive on the Ofcom website http://infrastructure.ofcom.org.uk/.

Town planning

The NFU responded to a recent consultation seeking to update and reduce red tape nationally in the town planning system.

We asked for clearer national policy guidance for agriculture in the planning system and clearer procedural guidance for local planning authorities.

We also cautioned against a two tier planning system, one that seeks to be more flexible, but then prevents development in National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

We used the consultation to ask for more permitted development rights for agriculture and permitted development rights to be updated to reflect modern farming techniques (to take more farming development out of the planning application process).

We also asked for the threshold for buildings for intensive livestock planning applications needing an Environmental Impact Assessment to be raised from 500 square metres to 1,000 square metres.

The NFU are also seeking further clarity from government and wider support for the right to convert agricultural buildings into residential units.

This new legislation, introduced in April 2014, to make changing the use of a building simpler and quicker, has not been rolled out fairly across the country. Members are experiencing a mix of positive local planning authority support and resistance. Other rural amenity groups are not always supporting the policy as a means of delivering affordable rural housing on farm.