Insights & Reports

Your site has development potential, but where to start? Two of Bidwells’ development experts answer the typical questions to consider from a landowner’s perspective.

As the reports show, we are now in an agricultural transition period. Changes for farmers will be phased in over seven years and over this time, the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) will be gradually reduced in a tiered system.

Now is an excellent time to review existing uses on your farm or estate and consider opportunities for the future.

It has been hard to miss the seemingly constant, upward trajectory of a lot of agricultural commodities within the last 12 months. Let’s look at some of the contributory factors causing this rise.

2021 was a busy time for the residential sector. With restrictions in place at the beginning of the year, the house move process was more onerous, though demand for vacant properties remained strong.

The outlook for the rural property market is positive and strong interest and values are welcome after a difficult 18 months.

Rural property Income return was up marginally over the 12 months, in part as a result of new tenancy arrangements, active management was the primary driver of returns, with alternative uses, and the promotion of strategic land counteracting wider market capital value declines.

The former mayor of Bogotá, Columbia, Enrique Peñalosa (Peñalosa in Thomas-Bailey, 2014) wisely identified that ‘children are a kind of indicator species. If we can build a successful city for children, we will have a successful city for all people.’

With farmers and investors’ interests aligning after Brexit and Covid, Bidwells’ Head of Rural Investment, Roland Bull, explains why raising capital from a sale and leaseback on your farm or estate might work for you in 2022.

In a previous article, we outlined the £8.6bn opportunity for private investment into peatland restoration - in Scotland alone. But as the rules and standards around corporate climate action evolve, there is a risk that certain types of nature-based solution are sidelined, because they reduce emissions rather than removing carbon from the atmosphere.

I've been pondering what to do for a blog over the last few months, trying to avoid one about housing need. But when our newly minted (deep breath) Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (SoSfLUH&C?) commented that the data currently used is "probably out of date", I couldn't resist.

To say the Scottish property market has been a rollercoaster ride over the past two years would be an understatement. No-one could have predicted the impact that Covid would have as it emerged in early 2020, followed by market pessimism, then tentative optimism fuelled by our cautious re-emergence, and the subsequent resurgence of the market in early 2021.