15 minutes with...Lord Townshend

15 Minutes With...Lord Townshend of Raynham Estate

In this edition of 15 Minutes With, CLA East Director Cath Crowther visits Raynham Estate in Norfolk to meet Tom Townshend, the 9th Marquess Townshend — a landowner whose family has farmed the same land since the 1100s.

Recorded on location at The Copse, the estate's own secret supper club, Tom talks openly about what it takes to future-proof a historic estate in today's climate. From building a portfolio of eight diverse businesses — including glamping, renewable energy, and commercial property — to navigating a five-year planning battle for a farm shop, Tom shares the real challenges facing rural landowners.

The conversation also covers the pressures of maintaining affordable rural housing against increasingly demanding EPC regulations, the three-year fight to get planning permission for a reservoir, and how a new potato rotation is helping to strengthen the farm's resilience.

At the heart of it all is a word Tom keeps returning to: resilience — and what it means to build a business that can still be farming here for generations to come.

🎙️ Hosted by Cath Crowther, CLA East Director
📍 Recorded at Raynham Estate, Norfolk

15 Minutes With is produced by the Country Land and Business Association (CLA).

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

This is 15 minutes with from the Country Land and Business Association. In this edition, CLA East Director Kath Crowther meets Lord Townsend of the Rainham Estate in Norfolk.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

So I'm here with Tom, the ninth Marquis Townsend. Tom, you've very kindly just hosted the Norfolk CLA branch AGM and summer visit, and it's been a fascinating day seeing all of the things that you have going on here at Raynham Estate. Tell us a bit about Rainham.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Rainham, as I actually mentioned in the meeting earlier, we've been farming here, family farms going back to the 1100s. So we've been a big part of the farming community as a whole. And farming really, in its purest sense, has been at the heart of everything that we do. But I suppose in the last 10 years, we've looked at diversifying quite heavily so that we can provide the resilience in the business to be able to broaden our revenues. So we now have about eight different businesses across the estate, ranging from lamping to renewable energy to property, self-storage in containers, and a lot of commercial property activities as well. So quite varied, but farming is still very much at the heart of everything we do.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

And we are currently sat on some benches in some pretty, beautiful countryside. Outside the Copse, the Secret Supper Club. Where was the idea for this? And explain to people what the what it is.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

So the Copse has been a brainchild really of mine for a long time. I wanted, always wanted to create a venue where we can showcase the meat that we produce. So we have a Aberdeen Angus, a sucklehead. But also showcasing all of the produce we have in Norfolk. I think we are we're really blessed in Norfolk to have have the coast, have amazing seafood, have fantastic beef, pork and lamb, but also all of the other smaller producers of produce from flowers, fruit, and veg. So to provide and create a venue that as we sit here now, you can't see a telegraph pole, a car, a road. And it is just a beautiful, secluded heaven, really.

SPEAKER_00 2:43

And the cops has windows all the way around, so you've got this view out into the countryside around, and enjoying that delicious beef with sheered platters on long tables. It was uh a great lunch to finish off the tour. One of the things that we saw on the way around was the new farm shop project that you you have. And that's been a long time coming.

SPEAKER_01 3:08

It has, yes. Yeah, it's something that has been going in and out of the planning system now for I would say probably four, possibly even five years. Um, so uh the buildings there have always been on my radar, really, for conversion into a farm shop. Um we are situated on probably one of the busiest roads in Norfolk, which the 1065 for us is the main arterial route into North Norfolk. And being able to look at how we can position those buildings and the conversion of them to benefit from the passing trade. So it's always been a desire to convert them for a farm shop. And um we're now in our second round of a planning application, which I am uh I'm confident we we've now answered as much as we can from planning officers' point of view and from all the different consultees. Um and uh we've had some encouraging conversations with highways and with the planning department now. Um, so I would like to think that next time I see you in a few weeks' time, we we will have a consent. Um uh but it's not been an easy journey. And I think it is it's concerning for us as uh as an estate where all of the things we need to do and want to do to help diversify our business and bring in employment and revenue into the local area really is being held up or complicated or adding huge amounts of extra costs because of the planning system.

SPEAKER_00 4:53

And unfortunately, that is the message we get from so many members. And I've used some of your experiences that you've raised in the Norfolk committee meetings with us in the past, with ministers with civil servants. Um, you know, we always try and say to CLA members, tell us about the issues you're facing so that we can use those as examples when we are lobbying government. Hopefully, we'll see some positive changes with the MPPF coming down the line later this year, but it's it's not an easy road. Planning is often um the barrier, but uh's an interesting project.

SPEAKER_01 5:30

Some of the challenges really are though that the planning system should be there to help guide people through the process. Um, and I mean I don't envy any planning department because I think part of the problems they have is uh around retention of good staff and where they're being hamstrung by central government because budgets are cut, and councils in general and districts and county councils are having as much of a problem as I say much, but they're on a different level. They're having problems like all of the rest of us with with budgets and funding. But um something has to change to be able to help the investment that entrepreneurs, that landowners, that businesses want to make, to then help drive their businesses forward.

SPEAKER_00 6:25

Couldn't agree more. And um, I think that permitted development rights have got a big part to play in perhaps reducing the amount of work some of those planning officers have on some of the projects that should be a no-brainer and should go through easily. Um one of the things that you talked a little bit about today was the residential property portfolio. And we've got renters' rights very high on the agenda at the moment, EPCs and ME's issues. Um, you came back to the estate in 2016, I think. Um and I think yeah, how have you seen things change in that time around the residential portfolio? Where do you see it going forward?

SPEAKER_01 7:07

So um what we've uh what we've tried to do here is look at each individual house and work out what needs to be done. Uh 10 years ago, there was a lot that needed to be doing, and uh and there still is, but we've concentrated on the fundamentals of ensuring the roofs are sound, uh, if they need a new roof, then we get on and do it now. New windows, so the where we can, we put in double glazing or secondary glazing, and uh and then redecorating and just based improving and lifting the quality and standard of the housing that we can provide. Because in a country and where we are, in the countryside, sorry, we don't have the ability to charge huge rents. And actually, it's something that is is very important from my point of view in providing a service which is along the lines of social housing, because the rents that we charge here are predominantly under market value. Um, and I want to ensure that we can provide good housing for local working families. Now, how it goes from here, where we are seeing changes coming down the line with EPCs and MES, it seems like those policies are being created from a rural an urban standpoint and not necessarily taking into account the the challenges that a rural market and rural housing has to face. Um and not every house is a new build, um, and not every house has cavity walling. And I would say the vast majority of our houses won't be able to meet the standards required under the MEs and EPCs. It doesn't mean to say that we have substandard housing, it also doesn't mean to say that we have no intention of providing the right quality of housing for our tenants. But one size really doesn't fit solution, and we're going to have to um work with the council and with the powers of be to try and claim exemptions. Um it is encouraging and with the hard work that you have been putting in to see the thresholds for investment coming down, but they are still fairly high when you put them across the houses. And um the invest the investment that we have made into insulating roofs, putting new roofs on, new windows, as mentioned, and then doing what we can to improve the EPC ratings. We're still only just reaching the levels of E, and in some cases C, but only in some cases, because we are brick and flint houses, which are single skin, and to convert them to get up to the right standard, we will never receive a return from the rents that we're able to charge.

SPEAKER_00 10:19

Yeah, and the point that we keep on making, and they're very pretty, beautiful houses, but they are not easy to meet the EPC requirements. I think that what we've heard today, community seems very important to what you're doing here on the estate and providing homes for local people at affordable rents, like a lot of CLA members.

SPEAKER_01 10:40

Yeah, it's really important.

SPEAKER_00 10:41

Um to change topic slightly, we had a extremely wet summer last year, a very wet winter, which I think meant that you actually could fill your reservoir, luckily. Um, but we're now in a very dry conditions as again. Um, I think it took you three years to get planning provision for the reservoir you've just put in. Is that right?

SPEAKER_01 11:01

Yes. Yeah, that's right. So it then meant three rounds of grant funding to match the years. And yes, the costs for that were painful.

SPEAKER_00 11:11

Um, often something that we see. But that reservoir has now enabled you to bring potatoes into your rotation.

SPEAKER_01 11:18

Yeah, it has, yes. Yeah. So I mean, within the farm, we have a seven crop rotation. Uh, we're looking at virgin land for potatoes. So um it has a big, we have a big interest for from potato growers. Um, we are uh have an agreement with Holcombe Emerald who are producing salad potatoes and earlies. So they'll be coming out in July, which does help us to then get a new crop in straight behind them and helps with ground conditions as well. But in looking at the potatoes, we'd only be looking at one in every 10 years for planting potatoes in a in their rotation. Um so it's pushing it out as far as we can, but then being able to have the ability of bringing another cash crop into the rotation, which again is as with everything, is providing resilience to to try and combat all of the different concerns and stresses that are put to us either from a political or an economic or global perspective. So resilience for me is a big word, and it's one that I use a lot because actually it it spans across all of the different things we do. Um, you know, to have been farming here for generations before, the the stresses that we feel now have been felt before in in different ways, but the way for us to get through it and to hopefully be here for generations to come is building that resilience across the farm, across all of the different enterprises and businesses within the estate to allow us to do that.

SPEAKER_00 13:02

Great. I think we might be running out of time there, but um we could talk about lots of other things that we've seen today. Thank you so much again for hosting the Norfolk AGM today, and thanks for talking to us on 15 minutes with.

SPEAKER_01 13:15

That's a real pleasure. Thank you. That was 15 minutes with. Don't forget to subscribe.