If the numbers came good tonight, could I just buy a farm and rewild it, or are there any obligations to keep it as a farm?

Your not aiming high enough………

Can anyone lend me 50 million?

I think in fantasy lottery-win-world, that sort of details doesn’t matter does it?

Can’t you just rag cars and quads around the land and have mini festivals every weekend like proper lottery winners! Some people… 🙂

You can just bribe whatever body governs these things or pay to have them “taken care of”

No obligation, crack on. Unless of course you wanted to use grants to assist though like countryside stewardship, sfi etc but with all your millions you wouldn’t need them. Bps subsidy is going anyway so no bother on that one

Presumably depends on the title deeds / restricted covenants for the property and what exactly you mean by “rewild”.  In some cases gov might even pay you to do it!

No obligation, crack on.

Your local planning officer may have other ideas.

My dad went through a lot of pain and expense to have his field reclassified from farmland to smallholding.

Your local planning officer may have other ideas

We’re talking about rewilding here. If you’re not producing anything for consumption or commercial gain, not claiming grants/subsidies, not building/developing the land, not keeping livestock, not producing any potential pollutants etc then i can’t see why defra/la/ea would have any interest but happy to be enlightened. However i guess if there was some status on the land like sssi then they’ll be restrictions but you’re unlikely to want to disturb that anyway

I would like to buy an area of Scotland (grouse estate) and replant a boreal forest. May not be popular but would like to think it would be there for future generations to enjoy.

We’re talking about rewilding here. If you’re not producing anything for consumption or commercial gain, not claiming grants/subsidies, not building/developing the land, not keeping livestock, not producing any potential pollutants etc then i can’t see why defra/la/ea would have any interest but happy to be enlightened.

Because even countryside has a designated use as per planning (especially if it’s in a local development area which, surprisingly also includes places in the middle of nowhere doing nothing), if you change that use then you need to go through planning.

I don’t make the rules but hey, if you want to test your logic be my guest, let us know how you get on, I have my experience.

@Pondo

just by the farm and do what you wish. Don’t tell anyone what you’re up to though.

As long as you get a new Range Rover every year and moan about those bloody interfering Euro types, no one will be able to tell the difference!

Randomly that’s my dream loto wish buy a huge farm and just plant trees on it with ponds and wetlands then stick a fence round it and just let nature do it’s thing.
I’d probably start some zombie testing zone or chemical research lab conspiracy theory as well just for fun. a road that disappears underground into a bunker for my cheese collection

I think doing just exactly that would be my choice for spending a euromillions win 🤔

I’d like to do the rewilding thing but I’d also like to build a really kick arse cycling circuit.

For those that remember the old Eastway track (now the Olympic Park), it’d be like that but with a far better road circuit including hills, cobble sectors, loads of layout options etc and with a BMX track, MTB/CX circuit, technical/skills course and so on.

The cycling equivalent of the Millbrook testing ground in Bedfordshire where Top Gear did various bits of filming.

And that’d also have loads of trees and wildlife areas.

You would also get a government grant to plant a timber cash crop. Of course you dont have to chop it down in 15 or 20 years. but the funds are there so might as well.

Thats how the rich keep their cash. they also get taxpayers money for ‘green’ projects.

if you change that use then you need to go through planning.

Could you just claim you’re a really crap farmer?

No idea tbh, since my dad died the field has been left to seed and honestly it looks great if a bit odd with a load of willow growing randomly everywhere. But plenty of wild grass and hedges giving shelter to birds I’ve never seen or heard of before (wee red/brown things with forked tails, I forget the name). My mum doesn’t want anything to do with it but doesn’t seem too rushed to sell up which is nice (if anyone wants willow whips when harvesting season comes gimme a shout).

There’s a farm near me that was just left for 25 years after the farmer stopped farming. It’s just been sold to a wildlife charity to turn into a nature reserve. I assume the change of use to a nature reserve would require some planning consent but the fact the farm hasn’t been in use for 25 years probably makes it a fairly easy argument to win.

There’s a massive empty toys-r-us in town, which closed down years ago

I’d like to rewild that by turning it into a big indoor skate & bmx track, if that counts?

There’s a massive empty toys-r-us in town, which closed down years ago

There’s an idea, the Ipswich one has fast food and a big Tesco’s close by too. No need for me to waste money on providing facilities just turn it into a big dirt jumping/BMX paradise.

You can’t exactly let nature do its thing. Well you can, but the results might not be what you after. We’ve lost a fair chunk of the animal ecosystem required for a full natural lifecycle. Mostly the big animals

You could maybe just farm trees? Ones that take a really long time to grow?

You can’t exactly let nature do its thing. Well you can, but the results might not be what you after. We’ve lost a fair chunk of the animal ecosystem required for a full natural lifecycle. Mostly the big animals

Oh if I had that amount of money, I’d be buying wolves and bison and all sorts for my land.
It’d have the added advantage of keeping the pesky public off it.

This is something I happen to know a fair bit about in my capacity as a part time field officer for a large tree planting charity. Simple answer is that “its’ complicated”. It would really depend on the farm. Buy a farm that is currently all arable or intensively grazeed pasture and you will probably not come up against any problems other tha\n the obvious one that the removal of primae agricultural land for rewilding is a travesty and should not be the goal of rewilding. However, if you wanted to buy a nice upland farm in Wlaes with rough grazing and steep bracken covered banks you will probably come up against major issues whereby all the areas will have been mapped and designated as areas of high conservation value for …. fritillary butterflies, great crested newts, ground nesting birds, dormice, etc etc, or else it has been classified as acid grassland or deep peat or any of a hundred other things which make planting of trees a non starter without an expensive legal process. And anything over 5 ha (2ha in a national park) will probably also need an environmental impact assessment (after screening). Ohter things which might throw a spanner in the works are Historic Landscape designations, Sites of special scientific interest and other official area based desigantions.

If you want to play with some mapping software for Wales, thern check out this site and have a play around and see where you might be allowed to plant trees and where not. It may surprise you.

https://datamap.gov.wales/maps/woodland-opportunity-map-2021/

Depends if there’s a covenant about keeping it a farm. Several farms, and even cottages, in the Peak District have covenants that you must keep x cows or y sheep on the land.

If you rewilded with a herd of park cattle you might be OK.

which make planting of trees a non starter

I thought the OP was planning to simply leave it. In an upland site it would probably take a while mind.

Oh if I had that amount of money, I’d be buying wolves and bison and all sorts for my land.

I don’t think the UK lottery offers the kind of prize money you’d need for land big enough for that. And even then it needs managing – see Yellowstone.

Also I don’t think you can just import wolves on a whim.

Start a deer refuge?

Unless of course you wanted to use grants to assist though like countryside stewardship, sfi etc but with all your millions you wouldn’t need them.

pfft, call yourself a farmer ? They’ll chase the grants no matter what they have in the bank 😉

A deer refuge and a wolf refuge on the same site. Interesting idea.

There was an article doing the rounds a few weeks back that was fairly indicative of the times… a walker on his regular track crossing farmland curiously asks a farmer why he was chopping down and clearing a large area of trees and ancient tangled undergrowth – an already perfect nesting ground for wildlife and birds. It turns out that the farmer admitted that he was clearing the ground so that he could gain access to the re-wilding subsidies for planting new trees … make of that what you will. We’re a fairly daft country so I’m sure anything goes.

You might also run into issues with hunting rights, which are often held entirely separately to the ownership of the land.

db
Full Member

I would like to buy an area of Scotland (grouse estate) and replant a boreal forest.

Being done. A billionaire bought several Scottish estates best know being Glen Feshie. The restoration of the native forest is well under way. He has set up a company so the project won’t die when he does. I first visited Glen Feshie with my dad in the early 70s when it was a a barren desert with no young trees and overrun with deer. The deer have been mostly removed and the forest has returned. Then glen floor and surrounding hills are covered with mostly self seeded pine, juniper, birch etc.

Controlling deer numbers is the key. I remember reading an article years ago where a so called expert said it was impossible to get Scots Pine forest to recover without fencing it to keep deer out. Proved wrong.

https://wildland.scot/

Ben Dolphin: Glen Feshie’s ecosystem restoration has made it one of the most uplifting places to go in Scotland

It’s finding the right land and most land is owned by a few individuals. It’s sometimes surprising who owns the land. I’ve worked on a water courses where the land is owned by a convent in Cornwall over 300 miles away.

https://abcfinance.co.uk/blog/who-owns-the-uk/

Though I’ve always had the same thought as the OP if I won the Euro big time.