Farms to reap rewards in tourism after Brexit
EXCLUSIVE
TOURIST hotspots will appear across the countryside after Brexit, experts predicted last night.
Farmers will increasingly offer leisure activities – including cafes, spas and playgrounds – to boost their income once they stop receiving EU cash, an agriculture consultancy firm said.
Environment Secretary Michael Gove set out “Green Brexit” plans last week, saying the Government will match the £3billion Common Agricultural Policy payments until 2022. But he warned that farmers will only continue receiving taxpayers’ cash if “the environmental benefits of that spending are clear”.
Consultants Rural Solutions said farms will introduce more attractions to rival seaside resorts.
Director Rob Hindle said: “Tourists will be the major new cash crop on many British farms in a postCAP world. Farm leisure will become ubiquitous rather than limited to holiday and tourism areas.
“Every town and city dweller will soon have a share of farm-based leisure attractions accessible within a 30 to 40-minute drive of their home in the suburbs. By 2027, the British countryside will be as much about cafes, spas and country clubs as it is about hay bales and cattle herds.
“Look at children’s drawings and you will find adventure playgrounds, zip wires and tree houses alongside the tractors and animals.”
Traditional farmyard buildings are being transformed into cafes and spas, while others are being converted into romantic and family retreats in the countryside.
Rural Solutions pointed at the Cheshire Ice Cream Farm, now the UK’s largest free-to-enter farm visitor attraction with more than 800,000 visitors each year since its £4million makeover in 2014. It has crazy-golf, battery-powered quad bikes, a 180-seater ice cream parlour and traditional farm activities.
Mr Hindle added: “We are getting calls every week from landowners who are keen to embrace a new approach to farming and land management which gives people the chance to use farmland to have fun and spend money.
“Diversification accounted for 32 per cent of average farm income in 2015 – by 2022 we predict that figure will have risen to over 50 per cent.”