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good agriculture land


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can sumbody tell me "WHAT IS GOOD AGRICULTURE LAND"?

I always thought it was land fur growing crops,eftir aa dat is da defination o agriculture.aa ider land in shetland is used fur grazeing animals.as far as planning permision goes i agree dit houses etc shood not be built on land dit is bein used fur growin crops,but if you rule oot aa da ider ground as GOOD AGRICULTURAL GROUND dan you can rule oot da whole o shetland,because dere's animals eating girs everywhar,even on da tap o sum sea stacks whar girs grows.think aboot it.

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Its a vaguely defined pawn that gets used by folk when they don't want someone to build something somewhere and there's no other reasonable grounds for objecting.

 

I'm not referring to either the contentious Scalloway or Tingwall sites, as I don't have personal knowledge of either, just observing the system in action where I do know the land.

 

Houses have been built in the last few years on what was some of the best quality arable Shetland can offer, without a murmur, presumably because no-one local to it objected. And the builder was an incomer to the area buying the site.

 

Other folk have had a helluva struggle getting permission to build, and other proposals have been refused for sites that while falling inside the defined area of "good agriculture land", were in and of themselves not, and highly unlikely to have productive agricultural activities. (Sites with rubble etc on them, oddly shaped corners in the ends of arable parks etc).

 

Somewhere in the Council, maybe just in someone's head, there seems to exist a map of Shetland with lines drawn on it defining "good agricultural land", which appears to be cast in tablets of stone. Preserving good productive land is fine and necessary, but losing some of it just because whoever drew the line on the map left out a bit, probably because it would have "made an ugly bump in an otherwise flowing line", or denying building use of a virtually useless rock-bound or between roads/walls/ditches little shapeless bit that's never been productive within living memory, but is otherwise surrounded by good productive land, is just making a mockery of the thing.

 

Guidelines are needed, but they need to be right. They're not right now, probably because they were largely created by folk sitting in offices drawing lines on maps, and locals with no knowledge or experience of agriculture. Even with a good map, each application should be considered on its own merits, as in a place like Shetland there's always going to be bits and pieces that despite being surrounded by good land, are never going to form part of it, and its just being petty not to make an exception of those plots.

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