News - Townsend Chartered Surveyors

Hugh Townsend has for 25 years been the country's "go-to" commentator on farm quotas and rural surveying issues affecting farmers. Having become the country's leading and most innovative quota agent he was broadcast to 3.8 million listeners on Radio 4's PM programme interviewed by Eddie Mayer on the 1st April 2015 – the Dawning of Europe without Milk Quotas, click here. More recently BBC1 interviewed Hugh Townsend on the future of farming following the Referendum, click here.

Hugh Townsend has over the years developed the most creative arrangements to promote an efficient market in farm quotas, in the early eighties developing leasing milk quota without land before the Milk Marketing Board introduced leasing for a part of the milk year.

He represented clients in leading legal cases defending transfers of milk quota and developed the new system of second TQ1 forms protecting the transfer of quotas with land.

In 1991, with Farmers Weekly he produced the first sale price index countrywide and started to publish farm quota sales and leasing graphs which are still published by Farmers Weekly and other publications and can be seen on our Milk Quota & Entitlements pages.

On BBC television he has defended dairy farmers who have been taken advantage of by unscrupulous inpiduals in the farm quota market and was again on television to comment on the "footballers buy milk quota" rumpus.

He regularly writes for Farmers Guardian and the South West's Western Morning News and our experienced team is sought after for their comments on farm quotas.

1.2.2024 – Farmers Weekly – First tender set to test market for biodiversity units

A tender for 74 lots of biodiversity units closes tomorrow (2 February) in the first sale of its kind. These are on land stretching from Northumberland to Cornwall and include sites in Kent, Cheshire and Suffolk. The units are being offered by landowners to help developers meet biodiversity net gain (BNG) obligations, which come into…

29.1.2024 – BNG – WHY BUY UNITS FROM THIS SALE? – RARE HABITATS – LOCAL PLANNING AUTHORITIES

You are buying from farmers who are the freehold owners of the offset sites, not tenants. You are not buying units from Townsend Chartered Surveyors, we are only brokers for our farmers, with no other interest in the units themselves. You are buying as directly as you can from farmers, so more of the sale…

23.1.2024 – DELINKAGE AND ENTITLEMENT TRADING 2024 NOW UNDERWAY

The Delinkage and Entitlement market is underway with more vendors and purchasers needed. For information on what’s available/wanted or to go on our register contact Henry Chamberlain on 01392 823935 or email entitlements@townsendcharteredsurveyors.co.uk ENGLAND – DELINKAGE: 2024-2027  Delinkage Payments  As long as you claimed BPS in the reference period of 2020, 2021 and 2022, you…

16.1.2024 – BNG – SOME FURTHER MUSINGS

Whilst it is important to remember that BNG guidance is both in draft and also in some cases only a suggestion on implementation, it is tempting to try and read between the lines to see the potential ways that the BNG process might be implemented. These interpretations should be viewed with caution as much of it…

11.1.2024 – BNG – CLEARING THE FOG OF DRAFT GUIDANCE

As we all try and peer through the BNG fog of swirling draft guidance and statutory instruments ever being updated and amended without notice, to see how the mandatory BNG process will be implemented, so often one query answered creates more. These observations should be viewed with caution as only some of the landscape starts…

11.1.2024 – EARN A 1% INTRODUCTORY COMMISSION FOR INTRODUCING YOUR DEVELOPERS/PURCHASERS TO OUR BNG UNITS

Notice to all agents (surveyors, planning consultants, professional advisers including ecologists, architects, planning solicitors & barristers). Earn a 1% introductory commission for introducing developers to a selection of our clients’ BNG units. The units if sold to your clients, which will entitle you to receive the introductory commission, are all the units shown on the…

6.12.2023 – Western Morning News – Another step closer for BNG?

The devil is always in the detail, and this so often only comes at the 11th hour. Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) is no exception with the mandatory BNG marketplace now in a different place to where it was only a few weeks ago. As one query is answered another two appear in its place. 1….

7.12.2023 – Farmers Weekly – Legislation brings biodiversity net gain regime a step closer

The legislative framework for biodiversity net gain (BNG) is finally being introduced, in six statutory instruments which will become law when BNG goes live in January 2024. This includes outlining the legal basis for calculating biodiversity value for BNG. In a change from the process originally set out, developers will be able to submit a…

4.12.23 – BNG – DRAFT LEGISLATION ANSWERS SOME QUESTIONS BUT LEAVES OTHERS UNANSWERED

Last week saw a flurry of activity on the path to mandatory Biodiversity Net Gain with the framework of agreements becoming clearer and implementation processes clarified. Secondary legislation has been released in the form of six statutory instruments applying powers fashioned under the Environment Act 2021 creating the means of implementing the Act’s objectives through…

1.12.23 – BNG – LEGAL FRAMEWORK SET OUT FOR BIODIVERSITY NET GAIN – FARMERS WEEKLY

The fuzzy picture for the mandatory BNG market is slowly becoming clearer. One of the most common questions I am asked, with the regulations coming into force in January, is how buying and selling BNG units will work in practice. See my comments in Farmers Weekly, online last week here. Also watch this space for our…