Giving people a helping hand so they can support themselves is a topic I’ve often spoken about before. Our thriving tenant farm programme is a good example and something that we are very proud of here in Staffordshire as it is one of the strongest such schemes in the country.
With food miles and food security being so important, agriculture remains a key industry for the county, providing thousands of jobs and supporting other businesses, the rural economy makes an enormous contribution to the county’s overall prosperity.
Not only do our County Farms offer the brightest skilled young farmers a foothold in the industry but they also contribute around £500k a year to the local economy. Spread across the county , our estate includes 94 farms, with houses, buildings and 8,600 acres of agricultural land. And, even more encouraging is that of the 19 units let to new starters since 2008, all the tenants have been aged between 20 and 30 years old which proves we’re attracting even more young people into the sector.
Farm rents are usually reviewed each year, however, as a responsible landlord and to help support our tenants we took the decision to postpone this year’s review until March 2017. This is the second freeze in two years for some tenants. We know that times are tough and we don’t want to impose an extra burden on businesses. Furthermore, our County Farms team will be visiting tenants to offer advice on running the most cost effective business and being as competitive as possible.
We remain committed to developing the rural sector even further and the exciting new AgriSTEM Academy, part of South Staffordshire College, which is due to open later this year will make sure people have the skills to help grow the sector even further. The new £5.4m skills hub is being delivered by the county council on behalf of the local enterprise partnership and forms part of the Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire Advanced Manufacturing and Engineering Skills Hub. The project will see existing buildings transformed into state-of-the-art facilities for learners and will put Staffordshire at the forefront of skills development in manufacturing and agricultural technology.
Sticking with growing our local economy, I have also been supporting a call for a relaxation of Sunday trading laws which haven’t been updated since 1994. It’s exciting that the Government continues to increase devolution in a range of areas and Sunday trading laws are a good example of an issue which should definitely be handled locally.
The letter, published in the Sunday Telegraph, was also signed by other Council leaders and supports claims that updated trading laws could provide a boost of £1.4billion a year to the UK economy. Other research also shows that it could also help create between 7% to 10% more jobs which would be great for Staffordshire people.