Fresh concerns over the future of polytunnel production of soft fruit in the UK have been raised with the threatened introduction of obligatory planning permission for plastic tunnels by Herefordshire Council.
“Jobs are at stake, our businesses are at stake and we haven’t even been consulted on the issue,” said soft-fruit grower Eric Drummond of EC Drummond & Son, Ross-on-Wye.
The Cabinet committee of Herefordshire Council was due to meet on Thursday to consider a proposal that all existing and new polytunnels should come within the planning regime. “We have spoken to the council and they are basing this proposal on action taken by Waverley Council in Sussex, but we growers and the National Farmers’ Union believe they have misinterpreted the issue and we have asked the council to wait until first, it has consulted growers and second, it has clarified the issue,” said Drummond.
The uncertainty is extremely worrying for the industry in one of the UK’s major soft-fruit growing areas and is likely to become of national importance should the planning regime be extended to cover polytunnel soft-fruit production structures. “A number of businesses have invested considerably in their production and at the moment they don’t know whether they will be able to grow fruit or not,” warned Drummond. He said that if growers were not going to be able to grow their soft-fruit crops, then they would need to know what time they were going to be given to change. “We would at the least have expected to be consulted.”
The issue is also central to the industry’s promotional body British Summer Fruits. “Any unreasonable restriction on the use of polytunnels is clearly going to have an adverse effect on UK growers,” said Laurence Olins, chairman of BSF. “This is especially the case if any restriction is without reasonable notice. The consequence of restrictions of this type will inevitably affect UK production and with ever-increasing demand for berries, we will be forced to import more from abroad.”
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