Opposition group crowd funds judicial review of sale of farms by council

An opposition group on Herefordshire Council is seeking to crowd fund a judicial review challenge over the local authority’s decision to sell off its farm estate.

It's Our County (IOC), an independent local political party, was founded in 2010. Since 2015 it has been the largest opposition group on Herefordshire.

It has so far received pledges worth £2,440 from 28 donors for the legal challenge, via the Crowd Justice website. It is seeking an initial £3,500.

IOC, which said it had taken legal advice on the challenge, said: “We feel passionately that the sale of all Herefordshire's publicly owned farms is wrong. We are concerned at the way the decision has been handled by the council and our concern is shared by our tenant farmers and by many local residents.

“Herefordshire is a diverse agricultural county - hops, yoghurt, beef, apples, cheese, chickens, strawberries, pork, asparagus, lamb - you name it, we grow it. Council-owned farms are the only means by which ordinary people have a hope of getting a foot on the farming ladder. As a result of the council's mishandled decision, the livelihoods and homes of almost 50 tenant farmers and their families are immediately at stake, as well as the future farming careers of generations to come."

IOC accused the council of mishandling of the decision process “including its decision to withhold key information from the statutory scrutiny process”.

“This included the council providing a heavily redacted version of its own external consultant's report; redaction which concealed the report's clear recommendation that the majority of the estate should be retained,” it claimed.

The funds raised are to be used to instruct a specialist barrister to assess the case documents for judicial review and advise on how to proceed from there.

A Herefordshire Council spokesperson said: “The council’s decision-making process is open and transparent. A group of councillors may call in a decision taken by cabinet where there is evidence which suggests that issues have not been handled in accordance with the decision-making principles set out in the council’s constitution, however there were no requests for call in when the decision to dispose of the smallholdings estate was taken in December 2015.”