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Agricultural land owned by University

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Dear University of Chester,

SOS-UK is developing a programme to support universities and colleges to manage the agricultural land that they own to achieve their Net Zero targets and to support the recovery of nature and biodiversity in the UK.

We are writing to all universities and colleges across the UK to find out if they (or any wholly owned subsidiary) own agricultural land, so that we can plan our new programme to best fit the needs of the sector.

Under the Freedom of Information Act, we would appreciate it if you could please provide us with responses to the questions below, to help us with this important work.

We define a "wholly owned subsidiary" to be a company or other formally recognised organisation that is under full ownership or control of the university.

We define an "agricultural land" as per the Agricultural Act 1947:

“agriculture” includes horticulture, fruit growing, seed growing, dairy farming and livestock breeding and keeping, the use of land as grazing land, meadow land, osier land, market gardens and nursery grounds, and the use of land for woodlands where that use is ancillary to the farming of land for other agricultural purposes (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo...>)

Our request below therefore excludes any woodland that is managed for commercial production.

Please could you tell us:

1. Does your university, and/or any wholly owned subsidiary, own any agricultural land in the UK?

2. What is the approximate total area, in hectares, of the agricultural land holdings owned by your university, and/or wholly owned subsidiary, in the UK?

3. If the agricultural land that your university, and/or any wholly owned subsidiary, owns is split over multiple holdings under separate management, please could you tell us the number of separately managed agricultural holdings?

4. How many hectares of the agricultural land owned by your university, and/or any wholly owned subsidiary, are managed by staff employed directly by your university and/or the subsidiary?

5. How many hectares of the agricultural land owned by your university, and/or any wholly owned subsidiary, are leased to one or more tenant farmers?

6. Please tell us the type of leases in place on that tenanted land: (a) farm business tenancy (subject to the Agricultural Tenancies Act 1995), (b) annual grazing/cropping license, (c) full agricultural tenancy (subject to the Agricultural Tenancies Act 1986), (d) other (please specify)

If you are interested to find out more about this work on farming, climate and nature please get in touch at [email address].

Yours faithfully,

SOS-UK

Dear University of Chester,

I am getting in touch because we have not yet received your response to our FOI request about your agricultural land holdings.

We have written to all universities across the UK to find out if they (or any wholly owned subsidiary) own agricultural land, so that we can plan our new programme on nature and climate positive land management to best fit the needs of the sector.

Your response is a really valuable part of the information we need to do this effectively.

We have used the FOI process to get as complete a set of data as possible and it is a legal requirement that you respond to reasonable requests and that you do so within 28 days of receipt. As I am sure you are aware, the FOI Act states that it is "the duty of a public authority to provide advice and assistance, so far as it would be reasonable to expect the authority to do so", and the ICO consider it best practice to provide "arguments or evidence" when applying this exemption. So far we have had a response from 65% of universities across the UK.

We would really appreciate it if you could let us know when you plan to respond to our request.

If you have any questions about it please don't hesitate to contact us.

Thanks very much,
Kate & the Food and Farming Team @ SOS-UK

University of Chester FOIA, University of Chester

1 Attachment

Ref: 101-23

 

Dear Kate Winters,

 

Thank you for your email dated 6 October 2023 requesting an internal
review into the handling of your information request, which we received on
21 June 2023.  I am the Data Protection Officer at The University Of
Chester and I have not been involved in the handling of your request
before performing this review, regarding your specific request.

 

Your concerns:

“I am getting in touch because we have not yet received your response to
our FOI request about your agricultural land holdings.”

 

My decision:

I have reviewed our actions to see if we have met the requirements of the
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). I find that we did not meet the
statutory deadline of 20 working days to respond to your request and may I
apologise on behalf of the University for this delay. The University did
not respond in a timely manner to your request due to two factors:

 

• There was a change in staffing managing Freedom of Information
requests. We now recently have a new team member to resolve this
staffing issue.
• The request was sent out to the relevant University department but
there was a delay in receiving a response. We have put in place
additional procedures to ensure requests for information are chased
internally.

 

Our response:

We have handled your request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
Please find our response below in blue:

 

1. Does your university, and/or any wholly owned subsidiary, own any
agricultural land in the UK? I can confirm that the University of Chester
does not own or rent any agricultural land.

 

2. What is the approximate total area, in hectares, of the agricultural
land holdings owned by your university, and/or wholly owned subsidiary, in
the UK? Not applicable

 

3. If the agricultural land that your university, and/or any wholly owned
subsidiary, owns is split over multiple holdings under separate
management, please could you tell us the number of separately managed
agricultural holdings? Not applicable

 

4. How many hectares of the agricultural land owned by your university,
and/or any wholly owned subsidiary, are managed by staff employed directly
by your university and/or the subsidiary? Not applicable

 

5. How many hectares of the agricultural land owned by your university,
and/or any wholly owned subsidiary, are leased to one or more tenant
farmers? Not applicable

 

6. Please tell us the type of leases in place on that tenanted land: (a)
farm business tenancy (subject to the Agricultural Tenancies Act 1995),
(b) annual grazing/cropping license, (c) full agricultural tenancy
(subject to the Agricultural Tenancies Act 1986), (d) other (please
specify) Not applicable

 

Next steps
We apologise again for the delay in responding to your request. If you are
unhappy after with our internal review, you can complain to
[1]www.ico.org.uk/foicomplaints within six weeks of receiving the outcome
of this internal review. If you still feel that we have not responded
appropriately to your information request, you can raise a complaint to
the [2]Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). This must be done within
six weeks of receiving our response on the outcome of the internal review
and can be lodged through their website: [3]www.ico.org.uk/foicomplaints.

 

Thank you and kind regards,

 

Freedom of Information Office

University of Chester

[4][email address]
[5]https://www1.chester.ac.uk/legal/freedom...

 

University of Chester

Parkgate Road

Chester  CH1 4BJ

[6]http://www.lightproject.org.uk/wp-conten...

The information contained in this electronic transmission is intended only
for the individual or entity to whom it is addressed. If you are not the
intended recipient, you must not use, disclose, distribute, copy, print or
rely on this email in any way - please notify the sender immediately and
delete the email and any attachments from your system.

 

 

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We don't know whether the most recent response to this request contains information or not – if you are Kate Winters please sign in and let everyone know.