Latest news with #ruralEconomy
BBC News
05-07-2025
- Business
- BBC News
Former watercress farm in Chichester to become glamping site
Plans to turn a former watercress farm in West Sussex into a glamping site have been application for Spring Gardens, in Newells Lane, West Ashling, was given the nod by planning officers at a meeting of Chichester District 2023, the site was home to Hairspring Watercress and the landowner Edward Scales aims to restore the site and turn it into six glamping to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, the design statement stated the plans would "improve the rural economy" by supporting tourism demand for "provision of high-quality accommodation in the local area". IRUK Waste Planning & Consultancy, representing the developer, described the site as '"no longer agriculturally viable" in the application. A report from planning officers stated: "The proposal would result in appropriate low-key tourism use and would make a small contribution towards the economic objectives of the district by increasing overnight tourism accommodation."The proposal would not result in any adverse impacts upon the character of the countryside, neighbour amenity, highways safety or flood risk and would result in a biodiversity enhancement."
Times
23-06-2025
- Business
- Times
My simple plan for affordable homes that keeps everyone happy
I have lived in the same village in Worcestershire for the past 50 years, on the same land that my family has farmed since the middle of the 18th century, in the area that inspired the village of Ambridge from The Archers. To sustain employment on the land, which had fallen from more than 60 people when I began down to three in the Eighties, we have diversified into hydroelectricity, housebuilding, hosting weddings and the invention of flower petal confetti, for which we grow more than 30 acres of flowers in a field that is visited by people from all over the world. In summer, we can employ more than 80 people. However this success in the rural economy is coupled with an incongruity. Many of these employees, including people who grew up in the village, complain that they can't afford to raise their families here.
