皇家华人

Non-statutory and statutory consultations

A reservoir with rolling hills in the distance

Sian Bentley-Magee/Unsplash

Communicating the impact that any infrastructure project will have on your business or property is the most significant influence you have to affect change. 

It is important that a developer has all the information they need to understand the impact a proposed project may have on your property and your business. This will enable you to influence the project and help to minimise the impact.

It is important to respond to the project consultations throughout the process, regardless of whether you support or object to the project, to explain your concerns and the impacts.

The developer will produce documentation at a consultation stage, which may include a project description, routing/options study and maps.

皇家华人recommends considering a consultation response in two parts:

  1. Opportunity to support/object to the principle of the scheme
    If you wish to support or object to the principle of the scheme, it may be beneficial to give some reasons why such as:
    1. Need for the scheme
    2. Health implications
    3. Impacts on the designations eg, SSSI, AONB.
    4. Concerns that the principle of the scheme is not justified.
  1. Opportunity to explain the implications of the proposal on your business and provide site specific information that may influence the proposals and route
    By providing the developer with information regarding the local area that the developer may not be aware of, as well as potential implications to your farm property/ business, may enable you to influence the scheme This may include highlighting information such as:
    1. listed buildings
    2. environmental/historical features on your farm, eg, SSSI
    3. impacts on diversification enterprises such as camping, on farm tourist attractions/accommodation.
    4. Impacts on arable enterprises such as crop contracts, high-value vegetable cropping, Christmas trees.
    5. Impacts on livestock enterprises eg, impacts on grazing platform for dairy herds, moving dairy cows on grass systems, impacts on grazing rotation for sheep and beef cattle, impacts on ground used for silage.
    6. Environmental schemes, eg, SFI/SFS.
    7. Historical activity on the farm eg, unrecorded burial/waste sites, mineworks or old military use.

Responding to the consultation

There are normally multiple ways to respond to a consultation including:

  • Feedback form available on the developer鈥檚 website
  • Email
  • Post

Send your feedback via email or post, this allows you to bullet point all of your feedback and concerns clearly. Explain the impacts of the proposals on your farm business.

You can use the following template in your response:

Please note: the Developer will not pay your agents fees for preparing responses to the consultation.

NFU consultation response

皇家华人may submit a consultation response raising queries or concerns in relation to a proposed scheme.

Your feedback is valuable and helps the infrastructure team put together a consultation response that is representative of all of the NFU members that may be impacted by a project.

It is important to include any relevant information regarding the local area that NFU staff might not be aware of, such as, key tourist areas, geographical features and the importantly impacts on your business.

Please note: the NFU is unable to comment on particular members' own site-specific impacts within the response, as the NFU鈥檚 response will highlight the overarching issues. This is because we represent all members and comments might result in moving the route from one member to another.

We recommend that, as well as submitting to an NFU consultation, you should also submit your own response that highlights the impacts affecting your property and farm business.

Draft consultation response

Copy and paste the content below into an email template or word processing document.聽聽

Dear [NAME],

My name is [NAME] and I farm at [LOCATION]. My business comprises [EXPLAIN NATURE OF BUSINESS INCLUDE ANY DIVERSIFICATION].

I [SUPPORT/OBJECT] to the scheme because

[ADD DETAILS and think about

  • Need for the scheme
  • Health implications
  • Alternative storage options available
  • Impacts on designations
  • Concerns that the principle of the scheme is not justified]

If the proposal were to go ahead it would have a detrimental impact on my business because

[ADD DETAILS and think about

  • listed buildings
  • environmental/historical features ie. SSSI
  • impacts on diversification enterprises such Christmas trees, camping, on farm tourist attractions/accommodation, renewable energy projects
  • impacts to farming enterprises such as crop contracts, need to move cattle around dairy farms, high value cropping
  • environmental schemes ie. SFI
  • impact of soils such eg peat
  • continuation of cattle tracks for dairy businesses.]

[SIGN OFF]


Ask us a question about this page

Once you have submitted your query someone from NFU CallFirst will contact you. If needed, your query will then be passed to the appropriate NFU policy team.

You have 0 characters remaining.

By completing the form with your details on this page, you are agreeing to have this information sent to the NFU for the purposes of contacting you regarding your enquiry. Please take time to read the NFU鈥檚 Privacy Notice if you require further information.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google and apply.