Houghton Lodge Farm-Postscript
At an open consultation meeting on the planning application for 4,000 houses on land south of Gartree Road, held on Wednesday 29th April at Stoughton Village Hall, a three way conversation with Caroline Foster, Development Director with Urban and Civic, Jack Springthorpe the previous tenant of Houghton Lodge Farm and an Echo reporter touched upon the closure of Houghton Lodge Farm and the redundancy of staff, at this model dairy farm, and the eviction of the Herd Manager and his family from the farm.
The Strategic Dairy Farm was part of The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board’s (AHDB) new Farm Excellence Platform, but the lease was not renewed. At the time it seemed this had some connection with the outline planning application for 900 new houses south of the A47 next to Bushby.
It is now clear that the decision not to renew the lease on Houghton Lodge Farm had nothing to do with the Bushby scheme but has everything to do with the proposed development south of Gartree Road.
In order to take the scheme forward, the tenant at Oadby Lodge Farm, Gartree Road, which is slap bang in the middle of the proposed development south of Gartree Road, has been transferred to Houghton Lodge Farm. Thus, it was necessary to remove Jack Springthorpe, his team and dairy herd as well as evicting Jack and his family from the farmhouse.
The old tenant at Oadby Lodge Farm was Wrights Agriculture Limited, of Glebe Farm, Saxelbye, Melton Mowbray. It appears Wright’s have been given a 10-year lease on Houghton Lodge Farm. They have seemingly already made alterations, taking all fencing posts and wire fencing out of the fields (for agriculture), have started making modifications to some of the buildings and are having the drains sorted. This is strange given the previous tenant was trying to achieve some of these goals for 10 years but were held on a ‘tight leash’ by Farmcare Limited. Wrights have also installed gates at each end of Houghton Lane which the previous tenant was denied, having wished to do so to dissuade people from using the lane to drink and take illegal substances etc.
Unfortunately, these gates have been erected some metres down the lane thus allowing for a continuation of antisocial behaviour in the area.
Wrights Agriculture Limited are an arable contract farming specialist, based in Melton Mowbray and offering services across the Midlands. They, nor their farming team, were based at, or resided at, Oadby Lodge Farm, as the majority, if not all, hail from the Melton area and choose to commute.
When questioned, Caroline Foster, Development Director with Urban and Civic, said she was not aware of the closure of Houghton Lodge Farm and the transfer of the lease to Wrights Agriculture Limited. She offered her sympathies to Jack and his family and undertook to investigate it and provide feedback to Jack and the Evington Echo. Perhaps a scheme that offers £100 million pounds in ‘community incentives’ could compensate someone like Jack who lost his livelihood and his home? So, watch this space.
